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WIIAT PETER AND NANCY SAW IN UGANDA 












PETER and NANCY 
in AFRICA 


BY 


MILDRED HOUGHTON COMFORT 

\\ 

Author of Peter and Nancy in Europe 
Peter and Nancy in South America 
and Happy Health Stories 



BECKLEY-CARDY COMPANY 

CHICAGO 


















Copyright, 1935, by 
BECKLEY-CARDY COMPANY 
All rights reserved 


« 



Printed in the United States of America 

C’CI A 88636 


DFC ±3 1935 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 


A Big Beginning. 9 

The Congo 

A Thousand Miles or More. 21 

Along the Congo 

In a Great Forest. 33 

The Pygmies 

A Royal People of Africa... 40 

The Mangbattus 

Blue Tanganyika. 49 

The Lake Country of Africa 

The Wild Animal Country.. 59 

Long Necks, Shaggy Manes, and Humpbacked 
Cattle 

On Vasco da Gama’s Trail. 66 

Around the Cape of Good Hope 

Windmills, Ostrich Farms, and Kaffirs. 77 

The Union of South Africa 

From Bethlehem to Parys. 91 

The Orange Free State 

The Sugar-Cane Belt of Africa. 97 

Zululand 

The Treasure House of Africa. 108 

The Transvaal 

Great Falls, Giant Trees and a City in Ruins. . 119 

Southern Rhodesia 

The Last of the World’s Frontiers. 131 

Northern Rhodesia 


3 














4 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

The Portuguese Colonies. 141 

Mozambique 

The West Coast of Africa. 151 

Bechuanaland, Damaralan, Angola 

From Slave Trade to Modern Business. 160 

Angola to Senegal 

Timbuktu! . 170 

A City of Sand in the French Sudan 

Black Ivory and Strange Giants. 177 

By Caravan from Timbuktu to Lake Chad 

Shells for Money. 185 

From Lake Chad to Kano 

The Roof of Africa. 194 

Ethiopia 

African Mountains. 207 

French Equatorial Africa 

A Caravan Trip and Desert Gardens. 217 

From Timbuktu across the Sahara 

A City of Mosques and Flat Roofs. 227 

Fez 

The White City of Algiers. 240 

Algeria 

Interesting Neighbors of Algiers. 250 

Tunisia, Carthage and the Troglodytes 

The Land of the Nile. 263 

Egypt 

















LIST OF 

FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

What Peter and Nancy saw in Uganda. Frontispiece 

One of the original jazz bands. 17 

Nancy was entranced with the wideness of the river 20 

In the midst of the great African forest. 32 

A big basket looking much like the laundry hamper 
at home, was lowered. . .. 145 

Europeans in white costumes, darker Portuguese, 
and East Indians. 148 

Along the coast of west Africa. 156 

Natives of Dahomey on the west coast. 163 

Truck crossing the Shari River, with the help of 
many natives . 179 

A disk woman of the Sara Kyabe tribe. 180 

Peter and Nancy saw a man weaving, using a primi¬ 
tive loom. 199 

Ethiopian nobles in festival dress. 203 

A caravan resting at an oasis. 223 

A little desert girl. 230 

The palace of a governor-general in French Morocco 233 


5 















6 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 

Here, in shops open to the street, everything was 
displayed . 237 

“See the natives bowing in answer to the call ?”.... 238 

Dervishes collecting alms for the support of a 
mosque. 243 

Native children in the date-raising section of Tunisia 253 

A native boy with a load of dates.254 

A shopkeeper in the old part of Cairo. 276 








TO ALL YOUNG ADVENTURERS! 


B ON VOYAGE ! This is going to be the jolliest, 
most exciting trip that Peter and Nancy have 
ever taken. They want you to go with them, to 
sail up the great Congo River, to meet the Pygmies 
and Mangbattus face to face. They want to show 
you the biggest animals, the most wonderful wa¬ 
terfall, and the largest desert, for Africa is a con¬ 
tinent of wonders. 

You’ll need woolens as well as summer clothes. 
You’ll enjoy cities of perpetual spring, but you’ll 
swelter in such heat as you can scarcely imagine. 
Right on the equator you may suffer frostbite. 

You’ll visit places where they use shells for 
money, where slavery still exists, and where dia¬ 
monds are as common as pebbles. You will see 
natives with strange tattoo marks and stranger 
jewelry. Never will you forget the black women 
who deform themselves to escape slavery. 

The mosques and missions, the modern shops 
and ancient bazaars, the rides on camels and don¬ 
keys, and many more things, you will not forget. 

Peter and Nancy urge you to make the journey 
with them. 


The Author 






PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


A BIG BEGINNING 

T HE-sky was inky black, hung with countless 
golden stars. The sea was black, too, rising 
and falling like a great, dark monster breathing 
deeply and rhythmically. 

This was to be the last dinner aboard ship on 
the Atlantic. Through the portholes the two 
MacLaren children, Peter and Nancy, gazed at 
a sky and a sea that at once frightened them 
and thrilled them, because they were so close to 
the shores of Darkest Africa. Waves of heat, 
like water, poured into the ship and made 
them realize that they were visiting the hottest 
continent on earth. Not only had they reached 
the Dark Continent, but they had rounded the 
coast which showed as a big bulge on their map 
and were steaming steadily toward the Congo, 
that great river that cuts across the equator. 
The last familiar landmark had been Gibraltar, 
the famous natural fortress beyond which Peter 
and Nancy had beheld Africa. This last dinner 
was in the nature of a celebration. 

Uncle Lee MacLaren, appearing taller, thin¬ 
ner, and more bronzed than when he had taken 
Peter and Nancy to Europe and to South 


9 




PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


Paul’s Photos 


AT THE MOUTH OF THE CONGO RIVER 
IN THE BACKGROUND, THE ATLANTIC OCEAN 

America, looked at his sober charges with spark¬ 
ling blue eyes. He was making this trip to get 
material for a series of articles that he had 
promised his editor. That editor possessed, as 
far as Peter and Nancy were concerned, the 
personality of a Santa Claus, for he had gen- 
‘erously announced, “Take Peter and Nancy 
along with you, Mr. MacLaren. I want to know 
what children think of Africa.” 

Peter was larger and stronger than when he 
accompanied Uncle Lee to South America. His 
eyes looked even more brightly blue in his tanned 
face. Nancy’s silky straight hair had been some¬ 
what bleached by the sun, but her wide gray eyes 
brimmed with the delight she always felt when 
visiting strange places. 

As the dinner drew to a close Uncle Lee said, 






A BIG BEGINNING 


11 


“Better enjoy your ice cream; it's going to be 
some time before you have any more. The chef 
did nobly.” 

The moulds, in the shape of miniature Afri¬ 
can continents, showed the Congo as a choco¬ 
late-colored stream. Peter spooned boldly into 
it, and Nancy observed, “Africa just naturally 
cuts in two at the Congo, the big piece north, 
the little piece south.” 

A friend of the captain’s rose to recite for 
the guests. As they ate their melting ice cream, 
Peter and Nancy listened to words they were 
long to remember. Vachel Lindsay’s word pic¬ 
tures etched themselves on their minds: 

“Then I saw the Congo creeping through the black, 
Cutting through the forest with a golden track, 
Then along that river bank 
A thousand miles 

Tattooed cannibals danced in files; 

Then I heard the boom of the blood-lust song 
And a thigh-bone beating on a tin-pan gong.” 

“Funny way to explore a continent,” spoke up 
Robin Randolph, after the poem was finished. 
He was an English boy who sat next to Nancy. 
“Why didn’t you start at the Mediterranean and 
continue south until you got to the Cape of Good 
Hope? Starting in the middle and then tackling 
both ends—well, what’s the idea?” 

“We didn’t pull ourselves away from our 





12 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


Christmas tree,” Peter answered, “just because 
we wanted to. Uncle Lee thought that this was 
the best season to visit the Congo. By spring 
we'll be going south.” 

“Then we'll fly north and finally start for 
home,” Nancy explained. “By that time I'll be 
able to tell where Biskra is, what diamonds look 
like in the rough, and how long it takes to climb 
a pyramid.” 

“Oh, I see,” Robin observed. “You didn't 
want to run into an equatorial summer. Well, 
I don't blame you. It's unbelievable the way 
the sun beats down. Why, at Christmas it's hot¬ 
ter than it would be on the Fourth of July 
where you come from.” 

“Then there must be two kinds of hot weather, 
one for summer and the other for winter,” Peter 
decided. 

“Dry and wet,” Nancy supplied. “We've been 
in the tropics before. In the mountains it's cold 
even on the equator.” 

“And more so in Africa,” Robin agreed. “Be- 
lieve-It-Or-Not Ripley says the coldest tempera¬ 
ture ever recorded was on Mount Kenya, when 
the mercury registered one hundred and fifty 
degrees below zero and a caravan of camels with 
their riders was frozen to death under a blazing 
sun.” 

Robin enjoyed the gasps of Peter and Nancy. 

“Through with your dinner?” Uncle Lee called 
from his seat near the captain. “You'll need a 




A BIG BEGINNING 


13 


good night's rest. By breakfast time we'll be on 
the Congo. You're going to face a big day and 
a big river." 

The morning was suddenly golden, almost too 
golden. The Atlantic breeze that had cooled 
Peter and Nancy even during the sunniest days 
was sadly absent. The only air that stirred 
came from the African shores; and that air, as 
Uncle Lee said, had all the earmarks of a steam 
laundry. 

“Are we really on the Congo?" Nancy in¬ 
quired, her gray eyes very wide as she pulled 
her hat down over her smooth, shining hair. 
“Why, it's as wide as the sea." 

“Of all the rivers we've seen, this is the big¬ 
gest, except, of course, the Amazon," Peter de¬ 
clared, staring at the flat expanse of water. 

Other passengers crowded to the rail. What 
they saw was a shining sheet of oily-looking water. 
Scattered over it were many islands heavy with 
gray-green jungle growth. 

Nancy clasped her brother's arm. 

“It's almost too big, too wide, too hot!" she 
exclaimed. “But seeing Africa is going to be the 
greatest adventure of all, Peter." 

The Congo, they knew, flowed through a val¬ 
ley, but a valley so wide that the hills that 
enclosed it looked like far, faint mirages to them. 
These hills, so far as the children could see, were 
bare and desolate. Even the sky seemed colorless, 
bleached white by the sun. 





14 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


Upstream went the boat, along an almost empty 
river. Except for a few native boats with dark 
sails there was no sign of life. Once the children 
saw a clearing with a native hut, its roof made 
of leaves. And once Peter pointed out a tin house 
which Robin said belonged to a white trader 
who bought palm nuts. 

“There really are no crocodiles.” Nancy sighed 
happily. 

“Funny!” Robin squinted toward the over¬ 
hanging shores. “No. You’re right. There were 
plenty a few months ago when I was here with 
Father.” 

“I know,” Peter spoke up. “Uncle Lee says that 
it’s because the river is high. It’s the rainy sea¬ 
son south of the equator and the dry season north. 
The crocs are there all right, but they’re covered 
up.” 

“Anyway, we can forget them. Please!” Nancy 
urged. 

After an early lunch, Peter and Nancy went 
out on deck again. The hills were closer now, 
and they looked blue rather than gray. But they 
were quite as bare as they had appeared from a 
distance. The only green lay along the base where 
palms lifted their inviting arms. 

“A town! A town!” suddenly exclaimed Peter. 

“We’re coming into Boma,” observed Robin. 

Nancy laughed with delight. Before her rose 
a steep little town, with green plants and many 
brilliant flaming-red trees. A motor boat came 





A BIG BEGINNING 


15 



Paul's Photos 


ROYALE AVENUE IN THE TOWN OF BOMA 

alongside the steamer. The officials in it wore 
clean white duck suits and pure white helmets. 

Peter glanced out at the shore line. 

“Look, Nancy!” he cried. “Our first real 
native! Wonder if he’s a cannibal!” 

A naked black man sat in a dugout canoe so 
narrow that Nancy wondered how it could stay 
upright in the water. The canoe was decorated 
with strange designs, and the man was decorated, 
too. His nose was tattooed with an intricate pat¬ 
tern and further adorned by a piece of bone 
stuck through it. The tattooing ran over his face, 
his chest, and his shoulders. The designs were 
so odd and so marvelously made that even Robin 
was impressed. 







16 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


“You’re just plain lucky,” he observed. “He’s 
one of the finest examples of a tattooed native 
I’ve ever seen.” 

The little town did not look like much from the 
steamer, consisting as it did of a dock, a few 
small buildings, and an array of huts, but the 
children knew that it had been the capital of 
the Belgian Congo before 1921. Boma was soon 
left behind. 

“We’ll be in Matadi by dark,” said Uncle Lee. 
“It’s just about one hundred miles from the 
mouth of the river.” 

As the afternoon wore on, the smooth, oily 
river began to change. Peter and Nancy leaned 
over the railing to watch the strange whirligigs. 

“Around this turn lies Matadi,” Uncle Lee 
declared. “You’ll see smooth water again. Mata- 
di’s a pretty bleak little town, but we’ll sleep 
on the ship tonight and see it in the morning.” 

“Will it be cooler?” Nancy brushed the hair 
from her damp forehead. 

Uncle Lee did not reply but hastily brought 
Nancy a cool drink. 

In the morning Nancy realized why Uncle 
Lee had remained silent. Matadi was hot, almost 
unbearably hot. The baggage station was built 
of tin that somehow made it seem hotter. The 
lava streets were red dust, and from the shops 
emerged workmen with sweat glistening on their 
bare, black shoulders. 

It was a new, a different world from any Peter 




Underwood cC- Underwood 


ONE OF THE ORIGINAL JAZZ BANDS 




18 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


and Nancy had ever known. In the narrow streets 
they came face to face with natives whose teeth 
had been filed to points and whose bodies were 
embellished with green tattooing. Peter exclaimed 
with delight over some native drummers that 
Uncle Lee declared comprised one of the original 
jazz bands. 

Everywhere were portraits of the King and 
Queen of the Belgians, in shops where calicoes 
and trinkets were sold, in offices where Uncle 
Lee took them to get permits, and in the hotel 
where they ate their lunch. These portraits were 
a constant reminder that this was the Belgian 
Congo. 

Peter and Nancy learned that some of the 
natives they saw here had been brought in from 
their villages to work like slaves in the shops. 
Both Robin and the MacLaren children felt sorry 
for them. 

“In the villages,” Robin said, “the natives sleep 
through the hot noon hours, just as the elephants 
do. It’s only civilized people who work in the 
noonday sun.” 

Both Peter and Nancy were now outfitted with 
pith helmets, sports suits, and high boots. Nancy 
looked like Peter’s younger brother rather than 
his sister. 

Above Matadi, the children learned, the Congo 
was blocked by about two hundred miles of rapids. 
Since it was necessary to go around the rapids 
to continue the river trip, white men had built a 



A BIG BEGINNING 


19 


railroad. That railroad had cost much, in time, 
in money, and in lives. 

The railway journey was difficult. The little 
engine, puffing and whistling along sudden curves 
and up and down steep grades, jerked and pulled 
the wooden coaches all the way to Thysville, 
which has an altitude of about 2,400 feet. After 
the dust and dirt of the journey and the uncom¬ 
fortable heat, the cold of Thysville was a relief. 
Peter and Nancy slept like logs in a hotel they 
were almost too sleepy to see. 

On the following day, the train roared down 
through more flowering country into Kinshasa, 
a town of stucco buildings, dusty pink streets, 
and a clean, bare hotel full of black servants, 
where the altitude drops again to about 900 feet. 
Banana trees and palms were everywhere but 
not plentiful enough to screen the travelers from 
the blazing sun. The cold of Thysville seemed like 
a dream.* 

“Kinshasa is on the boundary line between the 
Belgian Congo and the French Congo. Leopold¬ 
ville, the present capital, is just a few miles from 
here at the southern end of Stanley Pool.” Uncle 
Lee mopped his brow as he sat on the hotel bal¬ 
cony with Peter and Nancy. “Brazzaville, in the 
French Congo, is just across the river. Tomor¬ 
row we’ll be on our way again—on up the Congo.” 

“On up the Congo," echoed Peter and Nancy. 




Keystone View 

NANCY WAS ENTRANCED WITH THE WIDENESS 
OF THE RIVER 





A THOUSAND MILES OR MORE 


Y OU’D never believe it!” Peter, his pith hel¬ 
met absurdly askew, seized Nancy’s hand as 
she stood beside Uncle Lee on the mud levee of 
Brazzaville. “We’re going on up the Congo on a 
Mississippi River steamboat, run by wood. There’s 
an electric ice box on board and black men 
swarming all over the decks. You’ve got a white 
iron bed and a rocking chair in your stateroom. 
We dine in the rear near the big wheel.” 

“It sounds wonderful!” Nancy admitted. 
“You’ll find it quite different from Mississippi 
River travel at that,” Uncle Lee declared, wiping 
his brow. 

When at dawn the former Mississippi River 
steamboat began its long trip, Peter and Nancy 
were entranced with the continued wideness of 
the river. There were times when they could 
not see both shores at once. Often they mistook 
large islands for the mainland. Although the 
water seemed so smooth, the captain said the 
current was swift. 

The same bare hills that had at first impressed 
the children back at the mouth of the river out¬ 
lined the wide valley. Then, as day followed 
day, the land grew flat like meadow land at home. 
Finally, the jungle walls began to rise. This was 
more like the Africa they had visualized. 


21 


22 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


The jungle was gray-green, the river was al¬ 
ways shining. The captain lived on the upper 
deck, the white passengers on the main deck, and 
the Negroes below. Of course the servants were 
jet-black natives. The boat was crowded with 
luggage and with animals in coops and cages. 
There were many chickens, a number of parrots, 
and several monkeys. 

The old Mississippi steamboat traveled only in 
the daytime, when the white markings of the 
channel could be seen. Every night the boat 
drew up at a native village to take on wood and 
provisions. Then the seemingly empty shore 
would come alive with gay black natives who sang 
as they worked. There were many small black 
naked babies, too, astride their mothers’ hips. 
Always these babies wore strings of beads around 
wrists, waists, and ankles to keep away evil 
spirits. Their black mothers must have been very 
kind and the babies very healthy, for not once 
did Peter or Nancy hear them cry. 

Between Kinshasa and Stanleyville there was 
only one really big town. It was called Coquil- 
hatville. 

“It’s exactly on the equator!” Peter declared. 
“The captain says so.” 

“Feels like it!” Nancy and Uncle Lee exclaimed 
in one voice. 

By day the boat was very hot; by night, it 
swarmed with myriads of insects. But the forest 
was beautiful, and it was fascinating to watch 








A THOUSAND MILES OR MORE 


23 



Ewing Galloway 

THE SHORE WOULD COME ALIVE WITH GAY 
BLACK NATIVES 

the native boys and girls swim in the shining 
water or paddle their slim, dark canoes. 

At last Stanleyville came into view, Stanley¬ 
ville, where Uncle Lee planned to make up a party 
to visit the Pygmies in the Ituri forest. Here 
were white men’s houses, once pink-and-white 
stucco but now covered with green mold over the 
tarnish caused by heat and moisture. Here were 
factory buildings and the towers of a cathedral. 
Here were arcaded shops such as Peter and Nancy 
had seen in South America. 









24 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


“Shops with open fronts always look pleasant,” 
Peter said. “Pd like to work in a store like that. 
You'd be outdoors and indoors at the same time.” 

White men in white duck suits and white sun 
helmets sauntered down the red earth streets. 
Motor cars traveled along very much as they did 
back home. 

“Look, Peter!” Nancy exclaimed. “Monks in 
white robes and long beards riding bicycles! 
Natives with tall spears! Black men with bows 
and arrows! It's different, Peter. It certainly is.” 

Two chimpanzees, looking like little old men, 
shook hands first with Peter and then with Nancy. 
Their owner led the MacLarens up the steep street 
to their hotel. It was restful to sit in the big wicker 
chairs and to sip a good drink, even if it was 
warm. As twilight came on, the mosquitoes rose 
in swarms, and the MacLarens were glad to spend 
the evening indoors. ' 

The next morning, when the sun was like a 
furnace, the little party said good-by to the old 
steamboat. Uncle Lee left Peter and Nancy at 
the hotel while he went to make arrangements to 
join a party trekking into the Ituri Forest. He 
returned with two grinning black boys, their noses 
and cheeks tattooed in strange designs. The 
smaller one Uncle Lee called Tobo, the bigger 
one Marco. 

“Tobo will take care of your luggage, Nancy,” 
Uncle Lee informed his astounded niece. “He 
will be your servant. Marco will help Peter.” 




A THOUSAND MILES OR MORE 


25 



Underwood & Underwood 

CHIMPANZEES THAT LOOKED LIKE LITTLE OLD MEN 

“Will we need two servants?” Nancy asked, 
thinking of Helga at home. 

“There are fifty black men to assist six white 
people on safari , which, by the way, means travel¬ 
ing through strange country with natives, usually 
walking,” Uncle Lee explained. “David Randolph, 
Mrs. Randolph, and Robin are going with us. 
The Randolphs want to get some rare photo¬ 
graphs for their collection.” 

“Photographs of what?” Peter inquired. 

“Elephants, okapi, bongo, antelope, red buf¬ 
falo, and pythons,” Uncle Lee explained. 




26 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


“I never heard of okapi or bongo or red buf¬ 
falo/' Peter spoke up. “And I shouldn't care to 
meet a python. Camping out doesn't sound so 
good." 

“It certainly doesn't," Nancy agreed. 

“You needn't worry." Uncle Lee chuckled. 
“The government has set up camps at the end 
of each day's march through the jungle, and 
you'll grow to expect them. Every Congo trav¬ 
eler knows what a gite is." 

“And what is it?" Nancy asked meekly. 

“A gite is a lodging place or shelter for the 
night," Uncle Lee explained more fully to Nancy. 
“A gite in Africa has four stucco walls and a 
thatched roof. A veranda usually runs through 
the center of this house and there's a room on 
each side. You can count on a porch across 
the front, too, and nice, hard dirt floors. Win¬ 
dows are a rarity. You'll get used to that. We'll 
always carry frames and mosquito netting to 
shut out insects. Most of these places have a 
cookhouse, and some few have sleeping quarters 
for the servants. Why do we have fifty? Be¬ 
cause they have to carry beds, tables, chairs, 
clothes, food, and dishes on safari." 

“You're joking, Uncle Lee," Nancy accused. 
“Why, it would be just like moving day to start 
off on a trip like that." 

“I'm serious," Uncle Lee insisted. “This is 
called Travel by porter safari.' Part of the way 
we'll go by motor, part of the way by footpaths, 



A THOUSAND MILES OR MORE 


27 



Ewing Galloway 

A LARGE RUBBER PLANTATION 

and part of the way by water. There are no 
towns, no shops, and no food except native food. 
Tobo and Marco will probably carry sugar cane 
to munch and a banana-leaf package of sour 
manioc, which is the powdered root of the cassava 
plant; but I hardly think you two youngsters 
would thrive on such fare.” 

Plans were soon under way. Within the week 
two laden trucks and an automobile left Stan¬ 
leyville. The Randolphs were healthy, happy, out¬ 
door people. Peter and Nancy were glad to be 
with Robin again. The automobile went ahead 





28 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


through the forest along a red road. By this 
time both Peter and Nancy had become used to 
the red soil, which Uncle Lee said must contain 
iron. Red roads, great rubber plantations, green 
trees, bronze bodies! Tall black men carrying 
spears, slender women with loads of green plan¬ 
tains on their backs, children playing with big- 
eared dogs—these were some of the memories 
Peter and Nancy were storing away. 

The trees seemed taller and taller. The road 
became narrower and narrower. There were no 
bridges across the rivers, only pontoon ferries. 
These ferries were really platforms built on dug- 
out canoes and managed by long paddles. 

Night came on swiftly. The car stopped at a 
gite. Mosquito nets were hung on frames over 
the beds. The MacLarens and the Randolphs 
dined that first night on canned food. It grew 
cool, misty, eerie. Gold eyes peered from the 
jungle walls. The children heard rustlings, 
scratchings, queer little cries, and sometimes in 
the distance, a drum. 

Peter recited, “ 'A thigh-bone beating on a 
tin-pan gong/ ” 

“Please, Peter,” Nancy begged, “let's think of 
something very pleasant.” 

“All right,” agreed Peter. “Let's think of the 
Little People. It shouldn't be long now before we 
meet a Pygmy or two.” 

Once Nancy and Robin enjoyed a pitcher of 
milk secured from a herd of little humpbacked 





A THOUSAND MILES OR MORE 


29 



Philip D. Gendreau 

ELEPHANTS BECAME COMMON 


cattle tended by a native. Snow-white birds flew 
all about the little cattle, and Robin said that 
these birds were protected by law in the Congo 
because they picked ticks off the poor animals. 

Elephants became common. White herons in¬ 
variably accompanied the elephants just as tick 
birds did the rhinoceros and the giraffe. 

On and on the party proceeded, stopping at a 
gite, at native villages, or at outpost settlements. 
Tobo and Marco proved to be so very slow that 
it amounted to laziness. When they did not want 
to do something, they pretended to misunder- 






30 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


stand. Realizing Peter's and Nancy's intense 
desire to see the Pygmies, they smiled whenever 
they were scolded and brightly shouted, “Pygmy! 
Pygmy!" 

One evening Uncle Lee gave, as Peter put it, 
a regular lecture on the different people. He said 
that the people of Africa belong to three main 
divisions of the human race: the Caucasian or 
White Race, the Mongolian or Yellow Race, and 
the Negro or Black Race, and that most of the Cau¬ 
casians in Africa are known as Dark Caucasians. 

“And I'd thought of Africa as being a land of 
Negroes," Peter interrupted. “So I'm a White 
Caucasian! What's a Dark Caucasian?" 

“There are two divisions of Dark Caucasians," 
Uncle Lee answered. “There are the Semites 
and the Hamites. The Semites include the Jews, 
the Arabs, some tribes of Abyssinia, and the 
ancient peoples of Syria and Mesopotamia. The 
Hamites, darker in color and with frizzy hair, 
are found in Northeastern Africa and in the 
Sudan, as a rule. The Dark Caucasians have 
aquiline or Roman noses, thin lips and longer 
faces than the Negro." 

“And the Negro?" Peter prompted. “I know 
what he looks like, dark complexion, broad, flat 
nose with a low bridge, thick lips out-turned and 
large, prominent teeth that usually flash white. 
I like to see a Negro smile." 

“There are four principal groups of Negroes," 
Uncle Lee continued. “And you'll probably see 





A THOUSAND MILES OR MORE 


31 


some good examples of each group. You’re just 
beginning. The first group is found in western 
equatorial Africa—the group from which our 
American Negroes came. The second group is 
the Bantu, found mostly in Eastern Africa. The 
Zulus and Kaffirs are Bantu Negroes. The third 
group? The Swahili, living mostly along the 
coast of eastern equatorial Africa. These black 
folks are descendants of Arabs who have inter¬ 
married with the Bantu and most of them are 
Mohammedans. Many live in towns and work at 
industries of various kinds. This third group in¬ 
cludes the Pygmies that you are so anxious to see. 
I won’t tell you about them now.” 

“The fourth group?” urged Nancy. “Of course 
they can’t be as interesting as the Pygmies, but 
we might as well know about them.” 

“The fourth group are the Bushmen who live 
in the arid plains and desert country of Cape 
Colony and South Africa,” Uncle Lee explained. 
“They were driven south by the Bantu. They are 
the most primitive of the African races—hair 
growing in tufts, high cheek bones, flat noses, 
thick, out-turned lips and brownish-yellow skin— 
small, too, almost runts!” 

“What a lovely description!” Nancy cried. “I 
can hardly wait to see a real Bushman, although 
I do remember seeing one in a circus. Come to 
think of it, he tallied pretty well with your descrip¬ 
tion, Uncle Lee.” 






Ewing Galloway 

IN THE MIDST OF THE GREAT AFRICAN FOREST 






IN A GREAT FOREST 


N ALA was a tiny village in the midst of the 
Ituri Forest. It could never be found on a 
large map, but Peter and Nancy were to remem¬ 
ber it particularly because of the fragrance of 
the jungle flowers. It was in this village that the 
Randolphs and the MacLarens were to have their 
first view of the Little People. Leaving equip¬ 
ment and servants back on the trail, the Mac- 
Laren party made its trip on foot into the village 
with only one black man, Gunga, to interpret. 
But at the last moment Tobo and Marco appeared 
suddenly at the children’s heels. They were curi¬ 
ous, Gunga explained, because they had never 
seen a Pygmy. Peter and Nancy learned to their 
amazement that Pygmies were a rarity even in 
many parts of the Ituri Forest. Other natives 
were as curious as these to catch a glimpse of the 
Little People. 

“Here they are!” Robin shouted suddenly. 
Peter and Nancy would have passed by the tiny 
leaf-huts if it had not been for Robin, who pointed 
out how cleverly the huts were hidden. They ap¬ 
peared to be parts of the bamboo or palm clumps. 

The children were fascinated most by a group 
of little men carrying what looked like small bows 
and arrows, daintily ornamented, but evidently 
quite practical. Their scanty clothes were of bark 


33 


34 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Ewing Galloway 

IN THE FOREST WITH THE PYGMIES 

cloth, and they wore tiny straw hats fastened to 
their hair with bone hat pins. Nancy could not 
take her eyes off those long, sharpened bones stuck 
through the tiny hats and the fuzzy black hair. 
Peter stared at the beards. No, these were not 
midgets such as he had seen in the circus but very 
small men. They averaged, perhaps, four feet in 
height. Their skins were of a reddish darkness, 
more like an Indian’s than a Negro’s. The fore¬ 
heads looked very broad for the small faces. The 
eyes were far apart and prominent rather than 
deep-set, as one would expect in such wise-looking 











IN A GREAT FOREST 


35 


little men. All their chins were pointed, and the 
MacLarens half expected them to turn out to be 
wooden dolls. The Pygmies approached cau¬ 
tiously, looking about them and at the white peo¬ 
ple as though they wondered what was going to 
happen next. 

“Do you suppose there are more of them?” 
Nancy asked hopefully. “I should like so much 
to see the children.” 

Gunga, in a language called Bangala, told the 
little men what Nancy had said. 

“Thuku’s village!” they exclaimed, making ges¬ 
tures as of many children dancing about. 

“Thuku is a village,” Gunga explained. “All of 
the villages are named after their chiefs or 
leaders. They want us to come there. I'll tell 
them to expect us.” 

Gunga explained to the Pygmies that the Mac- 
Laren party wanted to see their village, to watch 
their dances, and to hear their music. Uncle Lee 
handed out presents of salt, tobacco, and soap, all 
of which are greatly sought after by these primi¬ 
tive people. The Pygmies gradually gained con¬ 
fidence and then began to eat the salt and soap 
rapidly. Soap they regarded as a delicacy. 

As their confidence developed, the Pygmies 
came closer to shake hands. It was the queerest 
handshake Peter and Nancy had ever experi¬ 
enced. First, the Pygmies would press the hands 
of their visitors, then seize the thumb of the 
hand they had shaken and wring that. Everybody 



36 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


laughed very hard, the children because the hand¬ 
shake was so queer, the Pygmies because they 
were having such a very happy time. 

“The Pygmies,” Uncle Lee said, “are held by 
some scholars to have been the first people in 
Africa. When a bigger people came to the con¬ 
tinent, they drove the Little People deeper and 
deeper into the forest. Only a few remain.” 

Back at camp once more, Peter and Nancy 
could hardly wait for morning when the porters 
were to take Uncle Lee’s entire outfit through the 
forest to Thuku’s village. And what a trip it 
was, through deep, deep jungle where palms, 
ferns, and vines tangled in the church-like dim¬ 
ness. Little black-and-white birds sang sweetly. 
Butterflies of gorgeous colors lit on the children’s 
hands and fluttered over their heads. Because of 
the roughness of the trail, Peter and Nancy were 
finding it much easier to walk than to ride. 

“Never, never have I seen so many butterflies 
all at one time!” Nancy exclaimed joyfully. “And 
I could never get close enough to touch them. 
It’s a lovely thing to happen on our way to 
Thuku’s.” 

No sooner was the party settled than Thuku 
announced that the Pygmies were ready to enter¬ 
tain his guests. Peter and Nancy felt as though 
they were in some fairyland of enchantment, for 
immediately drums began to beat and seed rattles 
to shake. As the children seated themselves in 
the shade, the Pygmy tribe danced into the open 



IN A GREAT FOREST 


37 



Globe Photos 

SOME PYGMIES AND THEIR TINY LEAF-HUT 

square. The Pygmy men wore their queer bark 
clothes, the tiny women banana leaves or bark- 
cloth aprons, and the very tiny children nothing 
at all. They all clapped hands to keep time and 
round and round they went, until even Peter de¬ 
clared it made him dizzy to watch them. 

Then they built a little fire under the palms 
and sat down to rest and drink and smoke. It 
required two Pygmies to hold one of the banana- 
stem pipes which was all of six feet long, with a 
bowl at one end. After smoking this big pipe, the 
Pygmies danced again. The big Negro natives 




38 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


did not join in, but they rocked and shuffled as 
though they could not resist the rhythm. Dance 
songs rose from all those small throats, songs no 
white man understood. Then gradually they dis¬ 
appeared into the forest, and the empty square 
blazed with white light again. Peter and Nancy 
rubbed their eyes, wondering whether or not they 
had dreamed of seeing the Little People dancing 
in the jungle. 

Later on the MacLaren party surprised another 
village of Pygmies. Seated before their tiny fires 
was a group of older Pygmy men and Pygmy 
women who looked like wrinkled leather dolls. 
These older people were waiting for the younger 
members of their tribe to find a location for a 
new village. 

“I never dreamed that Pygmies were nomads,” 
Peter said. “Pd like to think of them as living on 
and on in the same village.” 

“When the roots and edible vegetables give out, 
it's easier to move than to plant a fresh supply,” 
Uncle Lee declared. “Then, too, some places are 
much better for game than others.” 

Nancy saw one old woman melting kernels of 
oil palm in a pot over her fire. She explained, 
with many a merry gesture, that she washed her¬ 
self with the oil. 

“It seems quite all right,” Nancy nodded. “It’s 
much the same as using cold cream.” 

“But not so fragrant,” Peter added. 

One and all, these old Pygmies acted quite as 



IN A GREAT FOREST 


39 


delighted as young children might over the idea 
of having company while the rest were gone. 

Sitting before the door of a tiny hut was an 
old, old man. He smoked and smiled, and gra¬ 
ciously he permitted Nancy to peek into his house. 
There was no furniture in it. There was only a 
pot for cooking and a spear for hunting. Nor 
were there any more elaborate huts than that of 
the old man. Such a strange way to live, without 
clothes or furniture or valuable belongings. 

“Don’t they ever get cold?” Nancy asked, her 
eyes upon a Pygmy girl of her own age who wore 
just a small bark apron and a necklace made of 
teeth. “Don’t they use blankets or furs?” 

“Of course not,” Robin answered. “You can 
see for yourself that there are no mats to lie on 
and no blankets to cover themselves with. There 
are no clothes except what they make from bark 
or banana leaves. They can have fresh clothes 
every day if they want them.” 

“What do they eat?” Peter inquired. 

“Boiled plantains, sweet potatoes, bread made 
of pounded manioc, and a paste made from pea¬ 
nuts,” Robin explained. “They like salt and to¬ 
bacco, too. Uncle Lee and Father sent them salt 
cubes at Thuku’s. Maybe that’s why they danced 
so well for us.” 

Peter and Nancy were always to remember the 
Little People as very gay, very happy, and very 
hospitable, living their pleasant lives in their tiny 
leaf houses deep in the jungles of Africa. 



A ROYAL PEOPLE OF AFRICA 


“T)ETER, have you studied your lesson?” 

JL Nancy shook her brother as he lay in the 
hammock swung under the wide, thatched eaves 
of the gite. The party had settled down for a 
temporary stay in the Uele district of the Congo. 

“What! Lessons!” Peter exclaimed, and looked 
out upon the clearing on which the white sun 
poured. He swung his feet down upon the hard 
dirt floor. “I almost thought I was home. No fun 
traveling if we have to study!” 

“But, Peter, surely you want to read about the 
Mangbattus before you meet them,” Nancy cried. 

“You tell me about them.” Peter sleepily set¬ 
tled into the hammock again. 

“All right. Pll tell you if you promise to keep 
awake,” Nancy agreed, seating herself in a camp 
chair with her book. “The Mangbattu is the finest 
built of all the African natives. Not only is he a 
fine physical specimen but he's very intelligent, 
too, and he's an artist as well.” 

“Does he paint portraits or scenery?” inquired 
Peter just to show he was listening. 

“He builds houses,” Nancy continued, “that are 
decorated on the outside with beautiful designs. 
Some of the kings have imposing halls and pavil¬ 
ions. Their ivory and wood carving is marvelous, 
and they compose music. The Mangbattu is hos- 


40 


A ROYAL PEOPLE OF AFRICA 


41 




Wide World Photos 


A MANGBATTU HOUSE 

pitable and generous. He punishes thieves and 
is kind to the poor and aged. Once the Mang- 
battus were cannibals.” 

“Now you’re talking!” Peter sprang to his feet. 
“Now I’ll hear 'the boom of the blood-lust song.’ ” 
“No, you won’t, Peter,” Nancy declared. “That 
was long ago. The Mangbattus are aristocrats. 
They can trace their family trees back fifty genera¬ 
tions. Mrs. Randolph says they are a royal family 
rather than a race, for they marry only their 
equals. They are much imitated by other black 
tribes.” 

From that moment on Peter was impatient to 
greet the Mangbattus, and when one noon the 
palms gave way to the village of a Mangbattu 
king, Peter was the most concerned of all. Uncle 















42 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


Lee’s party had paused at the edge of the clear¬ 
ing. Here, spread out beyond the main square, 
were low round houses with peaked thatched 
roofs. The white stucco walls were decorated, 
just as Nancy had said they would be, in beauti¬ 
ful designs. These designs, of black and henna, 
were distinct from quite a distance. 

Each house was set in a grove of magnificent 
shade trees. Tiny fires had burned out in front 
of the houses, and the red hearths had been swept 
clean. The only life anywhere about was the flut¬ 
ter of bright little birds. 

“We are about to be welcomed,” Robin whis¬ 
pered suddenly. 

Just as the Little People had come across their 
square in the blazing white sunlight, just so the 
first Mangbattu approached. But these bronze 
figures were quite different from the Pygmies. 
Each Mangbattu was tall, over six feet in height. 
Each man carried a spear, and some held buffalo 
tails in their free hands with which they switched 
at the flies that swarmed about them. Their 
black-and-white-and-henna loin cloths were more 
than mere aprons. They were like short trousers 
but drawn in at slim, hard waists, leaving frills 
above. 

Peter’s and Nancy’s attention was riveted upon 
their heads. They had seen many queer head¬ 
dresses since coming to Africa, but nothing quite 
like these. In the first place, the heads themselves 
had been elongated. Among the Mangbattus the 




A ROYAL PEOPLE OF AFRICA 


43 


heads of very young babies are wound tightly 
with fiber cords. This causes the soft skull of a 
baby to change its shape, and gradually over a 
period of years the skull becomes elongated and 
pointed. These elongated heads are peculiar to 
the Mangbattu people. The hair, Peter and Nancy 
noticed, was wound in bands, round and round, 
and was finally woven into a flexible frame. Each 
Mangbattu looked as though he were wearing a 
little black basket upside down. Robin said these 
coiffures looked like black halos. 

“Here come some women and babies,” Mrs. 
Randolph exclaimed, getting her camera set. 

“How graceful the women are!” Nancy ex¬ 
claimed. “They do look royal.” 

The women walked with a curious sway, their 
arms and legs gleaming with bronze and copper 
wire, their heads ornamented with long bone 
hairpins. 

Outside the village, which was made up of the 
chief and his numerous wives and relatives, there 
stretched fields of cotton and manioc, but it was 
the village itself that held Peter and Nancy. To 
Peter the great squat drum under a thatched 
pavilion was the center of interest. When a Negro 
with a rhino whip in his hands bellowed some or¬ 
ders and a black haloed boy ran toward the drum, 
Peter quaked inwardly. 

As the drum beats began to pound, pound, 
pound like the hard beating of Peter’s heart, the 
square filled with men, women, and children. 





44 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


There was nothing but friendliness in the way 
they stared at their visitors. By gestures under¬ 
stood in any language, they invited the Randolphs 
and the MacLarens to walk through their vil¬ 
lage. 

It was a much more imposing village than that 
of the Pygmies. Peter and Nancy walked behind 
Uncle Lee through lane after lane bordered with 
palms or through tunnels cut in the bamboo 
thickets. They made their way over rustic 
bridges that crossed little brooks overhung with 
giant ferns. Here and there, in picturesque 
places, were lovely open buildings or pavilions. 
The thatched roofs were upheld by carved pillars. 
Here were granaries, kitchens, and workshops, 
even chicken coops set up high on carved logs 
where jungle enemies were not likely to disturb 
the fowls. 

Nancy was permitted to visit the quarter where 
the women and babies lived. Slender, smiling per¬ 
sons were these black people, wearing small 
aprons and a convenient little pad in the back 
which became a cushion when they wished to sit 
down. Some of the older women were pounding 
bark to make cloth. Some were weaving baskets. 
Several younger ones were painting patterns on 
friends.’ bodies, dipping their brushes in black 
gardenia sap. A few were helping with the elab¬ 
orate coiffures which indicated that the wearer 
was a Mangbattu. 

Nancy pointed toward the round houses with 



A ROYAL PEOPLE OF AFRICA 


45 


their lovely, patterned walls, and a young Mang- 
battu girl invited her to look in. Would these 
houses prove as empty as the leaf houses of the 
Pygmies? Nancy was curious. 

She had to stoop to enter. There were no win¬ 
dows, but gradually her eyes became accustomed 
to the light which seeped in between walls and 
roof. She made out two low, carved beds, hand¬ 
made, of course. Beside the beds were several 
carved stools and over in the corner there stood 
what looked like a chest. On the chest were a few 
earthen pots. There were no blankets or curtains, 
and no clothes. Since the owners lived, cooked, 
and ate their meals in the open, the house served 
only as a place in which to sleep. It was a very 
clean, neat place, the hard earth floor well swept. 

Not far from the house was a lovely, clear pool. 
Here a group of girls swam and splashed about. 
The pool looked inviting but Uncle Lee was call¬ 
ing. The drums were calling, too, big and little 
drums, some beaten with sticks, some pounded by 
hands. Once in a while the sharper tone of an 
antelope horn cut in, or the clash of cymbals or 
the now familiar jingle of seed rattles. But the 
air was dominated by the pound, pound, pound of 
the drums. Nancy's own pulses were beating 
loudly, too. 

The women carrying little carved stools left 
their shady retreat and with Nancy went toward 
the largest pavilion whose thatched roof was 
upheld by many carved pillars. The sunlight was 



46 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Ewing Galloway 


EACH CANOE WAS MADE OF A WHOLE TREE 

glaring, but beneath the roof it was comparatively 
cool. 

The chief sat on a low throne upon a platform 
with his mother, his wives, and his slaves grouped 
about him. The dancing began. Evidently it told 
a story which Peter and Nancy could only guess. 
Even the chief himself danced, the witch doctor 
following him about, and the rest joining in. Mr. 
Randolph demanded that Gunga interpret the 
story told by the mystic dances, but Gunga shook 
his head. 

“The Congo guards its secrets/’ Mrs. Randolph 
declared. 






A ROYAL PEOPLE OF AFRICA 


47 



AN ANGRY ELEPHANT, AROUSED FROM HIS 
NOONDAY NAP 


Then the long route of the safari wound again 
over red clay roads above which the jungle twined. 
The village of the Mangbattus was soon left be¬ 
hind. It had changed Peter's and Nancy's ideas 
of savages completely. Always afterwards they 
thought of that one group in the Congo with its 
higher level of culture as a Royal People. 

At breakfast the following morning Uncle 
Lee announced that they were going down hill to 
the Congo, on the Ituri River. 

As the little party stood on the shore after 
breakfast, Peter exclaimed, “Pretty swift cur¬ 
rent! But look at the size of the canoes!" 

“Each one is made of a whole tree," Robin 




48 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


explained. “The canoes are fully forty feet long 
and it takes at least twenty paddlers to man one. 
Grand riding! See, Nancy! There are steamer 
chairs under the banana-leaf shelter built in the 
middle.” . 

At last the party reached Stanleyville. After 
saying good-by to the Randolphs, the MacLarens 
proceeded up the Congo River by boat. 

For five days red, black, and white monkeys 
from the great forests through which the river 
ran, continued to amuse the passengers. Then the 
country changed to tawny, scorched-looking grass¬ 
lands which Uncle Lee called velds. Now hippos 
thrust their flat noses up from the shadowy 
banks to breathe. 

Once an angry elephant, aroused from his noon¬ 
day nap, trumpeted. Uncle Lee looked alarmed 
but the guide was reassuring. Elephants behave 
themselves if they are not molested. 

The river journey was over at last. Kabalo 
was in sight. Here was the junction point on 
the Cape-to-Cairo route. No longer was the Congo 
merely a great river on a map to Peter and 
Nancy. It was still a great river, but one of many 
strange impressions and countless beautiful 
memories. 






BLUE TANGANYIKA 


T HE car Uncle Lee had hired in Kabalo 
bumped along the unpaved road into the tiny 
town of Albertville on the shores of Lake Tan¬ 
ganyika. Peter and Nancy forgot their weari¬ 
ness. Before them lay a blue, sparkling lake 
whose further shores seemed vague and indis¬ 
tinct. Rising all about were high, steep moun¬ 
tains, the whole country quite as rugged as the 
Congo was flat. 

“It’s lovely!” Nancy exclaimed. “I adore 
lakes!” 

“Well, you’re in the lake country of Africa 
now,” Uncle Lee declared. “It is part of the 
Great Rift Valley, the length of which extends 
over nearly a sixth of the earth’s circumference. 
It is an important agricultural section. Cotton, 
coffee, and hemp are grown here in great quan¬ 
tities, but as sometimes happens in other vast, 
open spaces, hordes of insects make this their play¬ 
ground. Once a great swarm of locusts appeared, 
darkening the sky as though it were night and 
destroying all vegetation as they passed. All one 
day they flew across the country eating every¬ 
thing in sight. A famine followed. 

“This great valley forms a sort of huge trough 
in which the great lakes of Africa lie. To the 
north is Lake Victoria, and to the south is Lake 
Nyasa.” 


49 


50 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Acme 


“A SWARM OF LOCUSTS ONCE BROUGHT A FAMINE” 

“While before us,” Peter concluded, “lies Lake 
Tanganyika, one of the two deepest, if not the 
longest fresh-water lake in the world. It is 
450 miles long and 4,700 feet deep. Only a lake 
in Siberia is deeper than this lake. Just think, 
Nancy, it is three times as deep, at certain points, 
as Lake Superior! But when do we eat? And 
what do we eat? I’m off native food. I want a 
real meal.” 

“I want a real bath!” Nancy exclaimed. “Oh, 
what a lovely hotel!” 

The children had forgotten that clean sheets, 
warm water, and white table linen could be such 
luxuries. In this very modern hotel were white 






BLUE TANGANYIKA 


51 


people and Negroes as well. Nancy, watching 
the kind, smiling black boys caring for the small 
white children, inquired, “0 Peter, wouldn't it 
have been fun to have been brought up in 
Africa?" 

Morning dawned clear and sunny, and Uncle 
Lee hurried Peter and Nancy through the de¬ 
licious breakfast which, at the time, seemed much 
more important than a boat trip across the lake 
to Kigoma. 

“Why is Kigoma important?" Peter asked, as 
he spread orange marmalade on a toasted muffin. 

“It is the principal port on Lake Tanganyika," 
Uncle Lee remarked tersely. 

When the boat landed at Kigoma, Uncle Lee 
allowed no time for looking about but settled his 
fellow travelers in an automobile of uncertain age. 

“We're on our way to Ujiji." Uncle Lee pro¬ 
nounced it “You-gee-gee" and Peter laughingly 
repeated it. “It was once the greatest Arab slave 
market in Africa. How many natives were 
brought in from their peaceful villages to be sold 
to foreign markets, no one knows." 

Peter and Nancy, their eyes wide with horror 
at the pictures Uncle Lee conjured up, were 
agreeably surprised to find that Ujiji was an 
interesting town of about 6,000 people. Even the 
road that led in was very smooth, and the sunny 
beauty of the lovely green trees that had been 
imported from the East made the town look like 
a garden spot. 



52 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


The natives looked happy, too. The men wore 
robes of buttercup yellow and white. Peter and 
Nancy knew by this time that the yellow robes 
indicated that the men were Mohammedans. On 
their heads were the usual red fezzes. 

“I never knew before,” Nancy spoke up, “how 
lovely red and yellow could look together. 0, 
Peter, the girls!” 

“Now you’re talking!” Peter, to Nancy’s sur¬ 
prise, had agreed. 

The girls were indeed beautiful. They were so 
small and dainty that they looked like dolls in the 
light draperies that floated out from their shoul¬ 
ders in the breeze. Their features were straight, 
their eyes dark and lustrous, and in their well- 
formed noses they wore gold rosettes. They 
seemed to cast a spell, for Nancy felt as though 
she were in a land of enchantment. Uncle Lee 
was strangely silent. 

The MacLarens got out of the car and walked 
down an old road to the lake shore. Uncle Lee 
pointed to the famous monument that has re¬ 
placed the once famous tree on which the record 
of Livingstone’s death was carved. 

“Here,” he said, “Stanley, weary and worn, 
found the adventurer he had so long sought, 
and uttered the very ordinary words, ‘Doctor 
Livingstone, I believe.’ Sent by the New York 
Herald to find Livingstone after several other 
parties had failed in the attempt, Stanley met 
with untold hardships. The weather was bad 




BLUE TANGANYIKA 


53 


and porters were none too willing to risk their 
lives in the wild country through which it was 
necessary to travel. But Stanley made the jour¬ 
ney from Zanzibar to Lake Tanganyika and, 
overcoming every hardship, succeeded in his 
quest.” 

“It was an event of importance,” Peter as¬ 
serted. “At school we learned that it was Stan¬ 
ley and Livingstone who started to make central 
Africa livable for white men. One author said 
they started modern African history in this spot.” 

Back at Kigoma Uncle Lee busied himself 
purchasing tickets which would take him with 
Peter and Nancy ultimately to Mombasa on the 
Indian Ocean from which they were to sail around 
the Cape. But much lay ahead in the way of ad¬ 
venture before the MacLarens were to set eyes on 
that famous body of water. 

The train was one of the finest and most in¬ 
teresting trains on which Peter and Nancy had 
ever ridden. Peter, with his usual joy of investi¬ 
gation, entertained Nancy in the dining car with 
an account of the personnel. 

“The engineer is English,” he declared. “The 
conductor is Scotch, as he should be. The cook is 
Hindu, which worries me a little, and the fireman 
is Rhodesian. The waiters, Pm sure, are Con- 
goese. They look like some of the black men 
we’ve just left.” 

Two delightful days on the train brought the 
little party to Dodoma. From Dodoma Uncle Lee 



54 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Ewing Galloway 

PETER WAS FASCINATED WITH THE CONE- 
SHAPED DRUMS 


planned to safari northward across the Tangan¬ 
yika plateau. 

“Now we’re in British East Africa,” Nancy 
declared. “Our old geographies show this coun¬ 
try as German East Africa, you know. Now it 
is a—what did you call it, Uncle Lee—a British 
mandate since the World War?” 

In the new hotel of Dodoma Peter called 
Nancy’s attention to the portraits in the lobby. 

“No longer the familiar King and Queen of the 











BLUE TANGANYIKA 


55 


Belgians,” Nancy remarked. “IBs the King and 
Queen of England, isn’t it?” 

Out on the pleasant walks, shaded by feathery 
trees, and past gardens crimson with flowers, 
Uncle Lee escorted Peter and Nancy. They met 
some members of a native orchestra, and Peter 
could hardly be persuaded to leave them, so fasci¬ 
nating were the cone-shaped drums, and their 
players. 

The MacLarens soon stopped at a home of a 
British acquaintance, who was most enthusiastic 
over Uncle Lee’s plans. And instead of merely 
offering advice regarding equipment for the trip 
the British friend insisted that the MacLarens 
borrow his big old car and three trusty servants, 
two men and a woman, in addition to a white 
guide. 

“You’ll be going over ground made historic 
by the World War,” he said. “The big black 
fellow here fought the Germans. The other man 
and his wife know little of war and less of geog¬ 
raphy, but they can set up camp and cook.” 

By the time the party was an hour out of 
Dodoma, guinea fowl and grouse began to fly 
up around the car. Uncle Lee pointed out an 
antelope and a little gazelle; but Peter and 
Nancy could not take their eyes off what seemed 
like limitless horizons. After the close confines of 
the jungle paths of the Congo, this broad open 
country was the more startling. No matter how 
far you looked, as Peter said, you could still 



56 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Ewing Galloway 

UNCLE LEE POINTED OUT A GROUP OF ELEPHANTS 

keep looking farther. The plain was tawny and 
uneven, and there were occasional clumps of trees, 
baobab or monkey-bread, wild fig and umbrella, 
but the general impression was of flatness. Once 
a herd of zebras went pounding over the bare hil¬ 
locks that spread out on the plain. Near by on the 
right, Uncle Lee pointed out a group of four ele¬ 
phants peacefully dozing in the midday sun. 

It was on the morning of the third day that 
Peter and Nancy realized that Uncle Lee had 
something in store for them. 

“You think you’ve seen a great many wild 
animals, don’t you, youngsters?” he asked. 

“We’ve been to circuses,” Peter replied prompt¬ 
ly. “And we’ve traveled with you.” 





BLUE TANGANYIKA 


57 


“I’ve seen everything except a gnu and a 
kudu,” Nancy spoke up. “I don't think my edu¬ 
cation will be neglected if I don't see them.” 

The car joggled over the plains of the Masai 
Steppe. At last it stopped and Uncle Lee said, 
trying to keep the excitement out of his voice, 
“Get out, youngsters. Here's something worth 
seeing.” 

Neither Peter nor Nancy blamed him for his 
excitement. The brown plains before them be¬ 
came, even as they gazed, suddenly alive with 
game. From a distance the scene had looked like 
any ordinary grassy prairie. Now, close at hand, 
it was more like a giant menagerie let loose. 

“I feel,” Nancy confided, “as though I were 
turning the pages of my Book of Animals so fast 
I could hardly see them.” 

“I feel,” Peter confessed, “as though I were in 
an animal fairy tale where all the funny animals 
you knew couldn't exist came to life. Look!” 

It delighted Uncle Lee because the herd of 
animals closest to Nancy were gnus, or wilde¬ 
beests, local names for antelopes of a kind seen 
here. They were gray in color and had great 
shaggy heads, heads so big that, if they had been 
toys, they would have toppled over head first. A 
little beyond were zebras, and never in any circus 
had Peter and Nancy beheld so many. What 
clean, handsome animals they were, in their 
neat, black and white stripes! 

“What's that one?” asked Nancy, laughing at 



PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


58 



Philip D. Gendreau 


ZEBRAS AND WILDEBEESTS AT A WATER HOLE 

the sight of a homely beast with a long, sad face 
and queerly-twisted horns. 

“That’s a red kongoni or hartebeest,” Uncle Lee 
explained. “Over there are impalas. They have 
long, needle-pointed horns.” 

Uncle Lee pointed out gazelles of lovely red- 
gold and white set off with black lines, gray-gold 
antelope, and soft brown kongoni. Then, on a 
bare ridge, against the blue of the horizon ap¬ 
peared the strangest apparition of all, a group of 
giraffes higher than any giraffes Peter and 
Nancy had ever seen in a circus. 

“We’re imagining it!” exclaimed Nancy. 







THE WILD ANIMAL COUNTRY 


N IGHT on the veld was a night of thousands 
of eyes—the icy brightness of stars in the 
sky, and the gleaming gold-and-green brightness 
of the eyes of wild things, some low in the grass, 
some higher, some very high, like lighthouses over 
the rest. Peter and Nancy could hardly be per¬ 
suaded to creep into the tent Uncle Lee had set 
up. Night on the veld, Uncle Lee explained, was 
always a time of terror, for that was the time 
when the jackal, the hyena, and the leopard made 
stealthy attacks on the young, the weak, and the 
helpless. Uncle Lee’s party, of course, would be 
safe, for the blacks were well armed. Peter, who 
was usually indifferent to possible danger, shud¬ 
dered when Uncle Lee’s flashlight revealed a brief 
view of two rhinoceroses passing by the camp on 
their way to a waterhole for their nightly drink. 

The morning was all gold and blue. Uncle Lee 
had promised a closer glimpse of the tall giraffes. 
The big car came into use again and the guide 
steered the MacLarens straight into a perfect 
group. Even at that Peter and Nancy did not 
notice the giraffes until the guide pointed them 
out. Then they felt foolish. 

“These giraffes are exactly the color of their 
surroundings,” Peter discovered. “In school we 
called it protective resemblance.” 


59 


60 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Ewing Galloway 

UNCLE LEE’S FLASHLIGHT REVEALED TWO 
RHINOCEROSES 

“The colors are really beautiful, though,” 
Nancy cried. “I never saw such lovely colored 
ones in a circus or a zoo. See that one there, all 
red-brown with gold and fawn markings, like 
leaves. There’s one with dazzling white spots, and 
there’s a little one that’s pale gold. That big one 
is a gorgeous dark tan, like sunlight on deep, 
dry grass.” 

The tallest giraffes were at least twice as high 
as any Peter and Nancy had ever seen. They 
made the children laugh because they were taller 
than any of the trees and seemed to have no 







THE WILD ANIMAL COUNTRY 


61 


landscape to fit into. They were not frightened, 
but stared at their visitors over the tree tops. 
They had big ears for their faces, and stubby little 
horns that looked like small brown branches. The 
rump always slanted sharply down, and often the 
funny short tail curved up over the rump. 

The guide tried to make the creatures run, and 
one did start off at a good pace. He rocked back 
and forth on his long legs, looking as if he would 
topple over. Then he waited for the others, and 
together they moved off in a little procession like 
well-bred people going to church. 

From a gentle rise of land the MacLarens be¬ 
held lions lying in the sun like kittens. 

“The lion,” Uncle Lee quoted a friend, “is 
always a gentleman. He is brave, but he does 
not seek a fight. If he is let alone he does no 
harm. If he is forced to meet an enemy, that 
enemy would best beware.” 

The little party found the lions very shy in the 
daytime. The moment they caught the scent of 
visitors, they disappeared down into the nearest 
donga or ravine where the tall grass hid them 
completely. 

The wildebeests, however, were not shy; and 
soon Peter and Nancy began to notice many 
humpbacked cattle among the wild animals. 

“Domesticated,” Uncle Lee pronounced. “Prob¬ 
ably belong to the Masai tribe. They mean the 
same to the Masai as the buffalo meant to our 
plains Indians.” 



62 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Kaufmann & Fabry 


“IF THE LION IS LET ALONE, HE DOES NO HARM” 

“But we haven’t seen any natives,” Nancy put 
in. “Do the Masai live in villages? Anyway, there 
isn’t a village in sight, nothing but wild animals 
and brown grass and blue sky with distant blue 
hills.” 

The guide, his grin wide and amused, had un¬ 
derstood. He pointed. Soon the MacLarens were 
walking toward a tiny Masai village that had ap¬ 
peared but a few moments before almost invisible 
on the plains. 

Nancy took a long, deep breath. 

“I wouldn’t have believed it!” she declared. 
“It’s like the giraffes—protective resemblance.” 




THE WILD ANIMAL COUNTRY 


63 


The village was nothing more nor less than a 
group of low mounds of clay joined together 
around a circular corral with an entrance built 
of thorn branches to keep out leopards and lions. 
Each low mound turned out to be a house. 

Before the houses stood tall men leaning on 
spears. They wore pieces of skin knotted at the 
shoulder, and their bodies seemed to be covered 
entirely with henna-colored paint. Nevertheless, 
they were handsome young men with a certain 
cold dignity. They had straight noses, and slant¬ 
ing eyes; and Nancy saw each detail as she gazed 
at the queer hair arrangement. These sons of the 
Tanganyika plains wore their hair long, twisted 
in ringlets over their heads and bound in a queue 
or pigtail. Peter was more impressed with their 
ears which had been hollowed out until the lobes 
hung way to their shoulders. 

“Those houses look like long dried mud cakes,” 
Nancy declared. “I wish I might see the girls 
who live in them.” 

The guide spoke to one of the tall young men 
and he in turn called out something through an 
entrance of a mud hut. Immediately there 
emerged from various low doors a group of young 
girls, quite as short and plump as their brothers 
were tall and thin. 

“The girls' hair is cut short—very short!” 
Nancy exclaimed in amazement. 

Like many of the Congo women, these girls 
wore brass ornaments on legs and arms. Around 



64 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



their necks were rows upon rows of brass and 
copper hoops. They were not tight but jingled and 
jangled when the girls walked. And now both 
Peter and Nancy became aware of the strange 
slouch of the men’s walk. 

“Maybe it’s to call attention to the monkey fur 
about their knees,” Peter whispered. “Look at 
that one. He’s been standing on one leg ever since 
we came.” 

“That’s a racial habit,” Uncle Lee explained. 

“How can they be happy?” Nancy asked as 
she and Uncle Lee walked away. 


Underwood & Underwood 


MASAI NATIVES WEARING ROWS UPON ROWS OF 
TELEPHONE WIRE AS ORNAMENTS 













THE WILD ANIMAL COUNTRY 


65 


“It’s the only life they know/’ Uncle Lee re¬ 
plied. “They are proud of their herds. If you 
waited long enough, you would see them driving 
their cattle into the corral for the night.” 

“They look like pleasant enough little hump¬ 
backed cattle,” Peter observed. “I imagine the 
small children often have tiny calves for pets.” 

Neither Peter nor Nancy could talk of any¬ 
thing else but these proud tribesmen. Uncle Lee 
said that before the white men came they had 
been cattle rustlers and had acquired much 
wealth in this way. 

“Wealth in cattle seems strange,” Peter de¬ 
cided. “How do they pay their bills?” 

“With cattle.” Uncle Lee grinned. “They pay 
so many steers for a wife. They are fined so 
many cows for an offense. By the way, they drink 
milk and blood from the cattle, but they mix the 
two fluids. When a cow dies, they use the meat 
for food and the skin for clothing.” 

“Uncle Lee, you make it sound worse and 
worse to be a Masai,” Nancy accused. 

“There’s a bright side. They are a fine cour¬ 
ageous people,” Uncle Lee insisted as he helped 
Nancy into the car. “Even though they have 
nothing but necessities, they have learned to make 
the most of a difficult environment. Have we 
done as much with what we have?” 

Peter and Nancy grew thoughtful as they gazed 
toward the distant blue hills, when the party 
started back to Dodoma. 




ON VASCO DA GAMA’S TRAIL 


T HE sun slanted along the deck of the great 
ocean liner in the warm Indian Ocean. As 
they sat in their steamer chairs watching the 
city and island of Mombasa fade into the dis¬ 
tance, Peter and Nancy felt rather sad. 

Nancy said, “I feel as though we had been 
frisked out of Tanganyika like children in a fairy 
tale. Only that bumpy ride back to Dodoma was 
anything but fairylike.” 

“The automobile drive up to Nairobi wasn’t 
much to rave about, either,” Peter grumbled. “It 
was almost like driving into our home town, air¬ 
planes and automobiles and ordinary shops. But 
I did like the view from the town. Mount Kenya 
and Mount Kilimanjaro were great!” 

“Yes, and both are capped with perpetual snow 
since nobody knows when,” added Peter. “And 
from those vast snow caps glaciers flow down 
the mountains to the plateaus and plains below. 
Doesn’t it make you shiver to think of it?” 

“And it was fun coming into Mombasa on the 
train,” Nancy reminisced. “I’d looked forward 
to seeing Mombasa and when we stood on that 
corner of the main street and saw that traffic 
policeman in his neat uniform and bare feet, I 
knew one of my dreams had come true.” 

“I liked the crowds,” Peter declared. “It was 


66 


ON VASCO DA GAMA’S TRAIL 


67 


the most mixed crowd we'd seen in days. Re¬ 
member those naked Negroes staring at the city 
boys in their curious dress? It looked more like 
a nightshirt to me even though there was a red 
fez to top it. Arabs in turbans, Persians in silken 
robes, Indians in animal skins, and natives in 
nothing at all. Well, it was wonderful! You 
should have stayed longer at the fish market, 
Nancy, even if it was smelly. I'm sure there were 
a hundred kinds of fish—sharks, swordfish, angel 
fish, sardines, bonito, crayfish, barracuda, crabs, 
and what have you!” 

“I visited the next market, and I didn't enjoy 
the hides any more than I enjoyed the fish." 
Nancy made a wry face. “I don't care for betel 
nuts, either. But there were wonderful dates, 
Peter, and grand shredded coconut and good little 
cakes fried in deep fat. I had a drink of coconut 
water, or milk as we call it, from a fresh coconut, 
too." 

“I'll see plenty of dates and nuts before we 
leave Africa." Peter was scornful. “I’m glad we 
visited the port and saw the natives unload that 
coral. Imagine boosting blocks weighing from 
eighty to a hundred pounds upon those poor 
donkeys! Uncle Lee says that most of the build¬ 
ing on the island is done with coral blocks. The 
auctioning of ivory taken from hunters who had 
shot elephants without a license, was interesting. 
I didn't know that an elephant's tusk was so long 
and heavy." 



68 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



AUCTIONING IVORY OF ELEPHANTS 
KILLED ILLEGALLY 

“I wish we might have stayed longer in Mom¬ 
basa.” Nancy was pensive. “It isn’t often that 
you see such a mixture of Arab, Hindu, Portu¬ 
guese and English. Queer to see mosques and 
cathedrals close together. I liked the old part of 
town with its narrow, crooked streets best of all. 
Wish I could see again the tall stone houses with 
iron-barred doors and overhead passageways. 
The towers were observation shafts, Uncle Lee 
said, built by the Portuguese long ago.” 

“I like the new part.” Peter was enthusiastic. 





ON VASCO DA GAMA’S TRAIL 


69 



“Give me wide roads, bungalows, flower gardens, 
and golf links.” 

Then not quite so enthusiastically, he added: 
“This heaving ocean looked better from the light¬ 
house than it does from here. One day Uncle Lee 
and I saw an old Arab ship called a dhow com¬ 
ing in. One of the sailors said it had a load of 
dates, Persian rugs, and valuable skins. I wish 
I were back in that lighthouse.” 

“Peter! You're not seasick!” 

“No. Of course not! I believe I'm a little home¬ 
sick for the part of Africa we're just leaving. 











70 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


Uncle Lee says we’ll hardly know we’re in Africa 
when we reach Capetown.—What was that? 
Sounded like cannon.” 

“It was, Peter.” Nancy pointed to the faint 
outlines of the old Portuguese fort at Mombasa. 
“That was the sound of cannon from the fort. It 
must be just noon. Remember the red flag? Uncle 
Lee says that the ten miles of land which include 
the fort are still nominally under the Sultan of 
Zanzibar. Do you know, Peter, that the Arabs 
practically controlled all of East Africa until the 
Portuguese under Vasco da Gama rounded the 
Cape of Good Hope and reached Mombasa in 
1498. We’re doing it the other way about, leav¬ 
ing Mombasa for the Cape.” 

Now even the faint outlines of the fort could 
no longer be seen. A steady breeze had sprung 
up rippling the pleasant blue water. The palm- 
fringed coast revealed small scatterings of red- 
roofed cottages and huge mango trees as well as 
ferns, flowering shrubs and banana plantations. 

The great ocean liner on which they were 
traveling stopped at several ports on the south¬ 
ern coast. Beira, Lourengo Marques, Durban and 
Port Elizabeth were visited to take on cargoes 
of fruit, tea, coffee, spices and woolens, for export 
to England. 

Then one morning when the sea was calm and 
the skies clear, Uncle Lee and Nancy sat together 
in steamer chairs on the deck, watching the dis¬ 
tant shores. 





ON VASCO DA GAMA’S TRAIL 


71 


Peter joined them, coming up from below. 

“One of the sailors said he had seen mermaids 
near here.” Uncle Lee looked up quizzically as 
Peter spoke. 

“They just captured one off Cape Agulhas, the 
southernmost point of the continent,” Peter said, 
looking mischievous, 

Nancy jumped to her feet to follow Uncle Lee 
and Peter down to the hold where the sailors had 
placed the so-called mermaid in a tank of water. 
The ship’s doctor pronounced her a dugong or sea 
cow. Only remotely did the big fish resemble a 
lovely lady, and Nancy climbed back up the steps 
to the sunny main deck to tease Peter. It was 
good just to lounge about and play shuffleboard 
and eat the delicious meals the chef provided. 

At last came the morning, when, in the dazzling 
sunlight, Peter and Nancy saw land in the shape 
of a vast lavender mass which Uncle Lee declared 
was Table Mountain, right at the back of Cape¬ 
town. 

“The clouds above it,” Nancy aptly remarked, 
“look exactly like a very clean, white tablecloth.” 

“It will interest you to know,” Uncle Lee ex¬ 
plained, “that Capetown folk always call the 
clouds above Table Mountain the Tablecloth. 
When those same clouds billow about the sum¬ 
mit, they say, ‘Uncle and the Devil are smoking 
fast today/ Uncle refers to Van Hunks, who was 
a Dutch pirate and who, according to the Malays, 
had a smoking contest with the devil.” 





72 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



TABLE MOUNTAIN AND THE RECREATION PIER 
AT CAPETOWN 

“The mountain is shaped rather like a table,” 
Peter observed. “But there’s a big part and a 
smaller part. One of the sailors said the big part 
looked like a prone elephant and the smaller part 
like an ant hill.” 

“What a lovely town!” Nancy exclaimed as 
the ship, steaming through Table Bay, drew closer 
to reveal red roofs, sandy beaches and flowering 
foliage. “I don’t blame King John of Portugal 
for calling this projection of land the Cape of 
Good Hope.” 

“That was just because he was thinking of 
the Indian trade,” Peter observed in a matter-of- 









ON VASCO DA GAMA’S TRAIL 


73 


fact manner. “They say it was hard to colonize 
down here. The weather was often stormy, not 
pleasant as it is today. The natives were un¬ 
friendly, and even in the seventeenth century our 
history says the adventurers used stones for 
letter-boxes." 

“The first permanent settlers were Dutch," 
Uncle Lee offered. “You'll see a statue of Jan 
van Riebeek when we land. The French Hugue¬ 
nots came soon after the Dutch and they were 
followed by the English and other Europeans." 

Peter and Nancy could hardly wait to get down 
the gangplank. They realized at once that the 
British influence was pretty strong when Uncle 
Lee hired a hansom cab to take them to their 
hotel. The cabby drove them along balcony- 
shaded streets. Everywhere they saw crape- 
myrtle in all its beauty and the air was so frag¬ 
rant that they all breathed deeply. 

“Magnolias!" Nancy exclaimed. “I smell mag¬ 
nolias ! 0 Uncle Lee, look at that curb market of 
gorgeously beautiful flowers! What lovely shops! 
I know what street this is. You told us that the 
Parliament House was on Adderley Street. I 
love Capetown, Uncle Lee." 

“Those fellows with turbans are Malays, aren't 
they, Uncle Lee?" Peter was watching the 
crowds. “There were some on board ship, you 
know." 

Then they visited the native markets. Peter 
was interested in the drug vendors, who spread 



74 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Kaufmann & Fabry 

PETER WAS INTERESTED IN THE DRUG VENDORS 


their wares on the ground. Luck charms, talis- 
men, and voodoo curse dispellers, were offered for 
sale. 

After lunch the MacLarens drove again, this 
time along Victoria Drive and the Cape Flats, 
where they took time to enjoy the orchids and the 
blue water lilies. 

“I’d like to see where Cecil John Rhodes lived.” 
Peter had seen enough flowers and historic old 
homes. “He built up South Africa—was almost a 
king; wasn’t he, Uncle Lee?” 

“No, he was a British explorer, but he died an 
empire builder,” answered Uncle Lee. “You will 








ON VASCO DA GAMA’S TRAIL 


75 


see the results of his work and vision all over 
South Africa. Rhodes worked hard and at his 
death left a very great fortune. Part of this for¬ 
tune, as you may know, is used to enable students 
from Great Britain, the United States, South 
Africa and Canada to attend the English Uni¬ 
versity of Oxford.” 

“Cabby, we want to see the home of Cecil 
Rhodes!” called Peter. 

The cabby was used to such requests. He 
turned his horse in the direction of Table Moun¬ 
tain in order to take his passengers to the estate 
of Groote Shoor. Here, he said, was the seat of 
Capetown University. 

Through the wide entrance of the house the 
party looked out on the great Atlantic Ocean. 

“I don’t blame Rhodes for planning as he did,” 
Peter declared. “He was a doer as well as a 
dreamer.” 

“He dreamed in big terms, Peter,” Uncle Lee 
said gently from behind. “He wanted to consoli¬ 
date all South Africa, an area half as big as the 
United States. In a way his dream has come true. 
Although these various states are governed inde¬ 
pendently, they are all within the British Em¬ 
pire.” 

“It makes me dizzy to think of learning all 
their names.” Nancy had joined Peter and Uncle 
Lee. 

“Don’t try!” Uncle Lee advised. “I’ll give you 
an idea of them, and when you go home you can 



76 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


look at a map showing the divisions. Along the 
Indian Ocean lie Native Territories, home of the 
Basuto, Swazi and other black peoples. To the 
north are the two Rhodesias. The rest of the 
states: Cape of Good Hope, Natal, Orange Free 
State, and the Transvaal united in 1910 under 
the name of The Union of South Africa.’ ” 

“We aren’t going to travel through all of them, 
are we?” Nancy inquired. 

“Hardly.” Uncle Lee laughed. “I’m not quite 
as ambitious as Cecil Rhodes.” 



WINDMILLS, OSTRICH FARMS, AND 
KAFFIRS 


D ARKEST Africa turns out to be Sunny 
Africa/' Nancy remarked as she strolled 
happily along Adderley Street between Uncle Lee 
and Peter. “What a wonderful Promenade Pier! 
Let's hurry. I can hardly wait to see Mr. Van 
Riebeek close up. I want to tell him how grateful 
I am that he settled Capetown." 

The MacLarens crossed the broad pier gayly, 
quickening their steps when they reached the 
Circus to stand in front of Capetown's famous 
statue. 

“A sturdy fellow, forsooth!" Peter declared. 
“Those knee breeches, low shoes, and that broad- 
skirted coat and shovel hat take me back to my 
Dutch history pictures. Ah! The orange, white, 
and blue flag of the Netherlands flies from the 
pedestal. I know my flags, Uncle Lee." 

“You're certainly both high-spirited." Uncle 
Lee beamed upon his niece and his nephew. 
“Maybe it's the new outfits we bought here. 
Tweed suits and felt hats are much more becom¬ 
ing than soiled linens and dirty pith helmets. 
Just the same, you were both good sports back 
there in the lonely Congo. And here in a fine city 
of some 280,000 people, we have reason to be 
gay." 


77 


78 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Paul’s Photos 


STATUE OF JAN VAN RIEBEEK 

Peter and Nancy were almost embarrassed at 
the praise. Peter asked abruptly, “Who were the 
Boers, Uncle Lee? Dutchmen like Van Riebeek, 
here?” 

“Yes,” Uncle Lee replied. “They were orig¬ 
inally Dutch pioneers who severed from the Dutch 
East India Company and became independent 
farmers on the veld. The Boer farmer’s equip¬ 
ment has been listed as a gun, a horse, a Bible, 
and some black slaves. Tomorrow we’ll start out 
for the plains of the Little Karroo where you’ll 
see the Boer in his present glory. All Capetown 
is talking right now because the desert has bios- 










OSTRICH FARMS AND KAFFIRS 


79 


somed. Say, can you spell mesembryanthemum, 
Peter?” . 

“I can’t even say it,” Peter said, dumbfounded. 

“I know Pve never heard anything like that,” 
Nancy insisted. “It has a faint resemblance in 
sound to chrysanthemum.” 

“Good girl!” Uncle Lee was pleased. “You’re 
warm, as you say when playing a game. Even 
after a seven-year drouth, which is not unusual 
either in the wide, open spaces of the Little Kar¬ 
roo or the Great Karroo, a shower will bring into 
bloom the millions of seeds of the mesembryan¬ 
themum. All the plains and washings that were 
dry and desolate will be covered in a few short 
hours with pinkish-purple, daisy-like flowers. 
And that’s what we’re going out to see.” 

Back at the hotel Uncle Lee got out his map. 
There, off to the east of Capetown, was the 
Little Karroo, and north of this desert lay the 
Great Karroo. The first lap of the journey was 
to be in a hired motor car to Caledon southeast 
of Capetown. 

As the car purred out over the red road early 
in the morning, Peter and Nancy looked across 
fresh green fields, and once Uncle Lee stopped 
the car to allow Nancy to get out and pick a 
bunch of bluebells. Tall trees, exquisite lilies, rich 
vineyards, and well-cared-for peach orchards 
passed in review. After Caledon, other neat, tiny 
towns, or townlets, as Uncle Lee called them, ap¬ 
peared from time to time. The quaint homesteads 



80 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Philip D. Gendreau 

A PART OF THE KARROO DESERT 


in what was once called the Wagon Makers Val¬ 
ley were like pictures of Dutch farmhouses in the 
book. This pastoral life seemed almost ideal. A 
clean, blue-eyed young farmer came out to greet 
the MacLarens when Uncle Lee drove into his 
yard. He was eager to show them the desert 
which was within walking distance of his home. 

At last Uncle Lee stood with Peter and Nancy 
on the edge of the Little Karroo, all silent with 
delight over the scene before them. 

“The veld blossoms,” the boy said. “Once be¬ 
fore I think I see it like this, but it was only a 
mirage.” 







OSTRICH FARMS AND KAFFIRS 


81 


“I’ve never seen so many flowers in all my life,” 
Nancy exulted. “It’s the loveliest sight I ever 
hope to see.” 

The two deserts, the Little Karroo and the 
Great Karroo, Uncle Lee said in answer to Peter's 
questions, comprise about 100,000 square miles of 
land. They help support one of the world's great¬ 
est wool-raising industries. 

The boy wanted to know what Peter and Nancy 
thought of his little town through which they had 
just passed. It was a town with electric lighted 
streets, pleasant houses, tennis courts, golf links 
and a swimming pool. Both MacLaren children 
admitted that it was a delightful little town. 
The boy immediately looked back at the desert. 

“All the flowers are as nothing after all!” he 
exclaimed. “It is the homely little karroo bush 
that sustains the sheep. Even when the bush is 
dried, it contains much nourishment. And al¬ 
ways it is here.” 

“Hurrah for the brave little karroo bush!” 
shouted Peter. 

“Irrigation is the answer to the desert prob¬ 
lem,” Uncle Lee observed. “Irrigation—and, I 
must admit, the tough little karroo bush.” 

Uncle Lee turned his car toward the Great 
Karroo; and now steel windmills began to be 
common. 

“Our next stop,” he decided, “will be at an 
ostrich farm! Do you see that square brick farm¬ 
house ahead of us, with the shade trees and the 



82 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


little patches of green? That green is cultivated 
garden; but most of the farm, as you see, is 
desert country—sand and coarse grass and thorn 
bushes. Those thorn bushes will come in handy. 
But look what’s coming along the road!” 

“An ostrich!” Nancy exclaimed. “Drawing a 
buggy!” 

“Coming at a good clip, too!” Peter added. “As 
fast as any horse I ever saw.” 

The Englishman who was driving this biggest 
of birds drew up alongside Uncle Lee’s car, which 
had slowed to a stop. 

“Drive right into the farm,” he invited after 
introductions were over, “and I’ll have my Kaffir 
cook scramble an egg for your party.” 

Peter, who was very hungry, whispered, 
“Scramble us an egg! I could eat half a dozen.” 

But when 'Peter followed Fuzzy, the Kaffir, into 
the kitchen and saw him hack at a three-pound 
ostrich egg with a cleaver, he felt much better. 
The shell was white with black specks and as 
thick and hard as cardboard. The contents of 
that hard, thick shell fed the MacLarens and 
their affable host. There was some left over. 

While the Englishman talked, Uncle Lee jotted 
down important facts for an article. Peter was 
particularly interested in the stories that were 
told of Nubians on horseback hunting ostriches 
in the Sahara. Oftentimes, Peter learned, an 
ostrich could tire out three strong horses before 
he dropped exhausted himself. 



OSTRICH FARMS AND KAFFIRS 


83 


“Wild ostriches have almost disappeared,” the 
Englishman declared. “Natives have hunted 
them with bows and arrows, and newcomers have 
hunted them with guns. It is a shame to kill them. 
A dead ostrich can give only one set of feathers; 
a domesticated ostrich may be plucked as long 
as it lives.” 

“Doesn’t it hurt a bird to have its feathers 
pulled out?” Nancy inquired soberly. Peter looked 
intensely interested, too. 

“I should have said clipped rather than 
plucked” the host explained. “Come, I’ll take you 
about. I can’t show you all my farm in one day, 
since my land runs into about ten thousand acres, 
nor can I show you all my ostriches. I’d say there 
were a couple of thousand. We hatch some os¬ 
triches in incubators. It takes twice as long for 
ostrich eggs to hatch as chickens’ eggs. Some of 
the eggs are hatched by the parents. The cock 
digs a hole in the sand in which the eggs are 
laid—they number all the way from twenty to 
forty—and then the parents take turns sitting 
on them. Usually in the daytime you’ll find the 
hen on the eggs, while the cock guards her.” 

Peter and Nancy saw that the birds were in 
large fields, enclosed by a high wire fence. As the 
children ran toward the first fence, several of the 
big, ungainly birds stuck their heads over like 
inquisitive neighbors peering at strangers. 

“How big their eyes are for the size of their 
heads!” Nancy exclaimed. “And what homely, 







84 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



OSTRICH EGGS ARE LAID IN A HOLE IN THE SAND 

long necks! But oh, the lovely plumes! How 
many plumes does an ostrich have, Uncle Lee?” 

“You’ll see for yourselves,” Uncle Lee evaded 
as the little party approached a corral, at one 
end of which was a pen where stood a big male 
bird with magnificent plumage. A sock had been 
pulled over his head. The pen was so small that 
he could not kick. 

To Nancy’s relief the feathers were not pulled 
out but clipped close to the skin. She learned that 
the quill ends soon dried up and could be pulled 
out painlessly. Then the new feathers would 
begin to grow in. 








OSTRICH FARMS AND KAFFIRS 


85 


“Let’s count the feathers!” Uncle Lee suggested. 

There were twenty-five plumes in each wing. 
The plumes of the males were all white while 
those of the females were tipped with gray or 
yellow. After the plumes were clipped, the 
shorter feathers followed, and then the tail 
feathers. Peter and Nancy counted up to three 
hundred for each of several birds. The owner 
chuckled at the children’s expressions when they 
saw the queer-looking plucked birds. 

“Come back in seven months and you’ll find 
them quite as beautiful as before,” he promised. 

Peter had followed one of the Kaffirs into the 
pen. Suddenly a cock ostrich rushed at him. A 
black Kaffir boy with a thorn bush in his hand 
switched it into the cock’s face. Peter, white 
and trembling, scrambled to safety. Uncle Lee 
scolded. 

“What good does it do to boil water for fifteen 
minutes in a jungle, Peter, to save you from 
fever, if you’re going to be kicked by an ostrich 
in South Africa?” he asked. “After this, carry a 
thorn bush with you.” 

“I believe you did mention thorn bushes com¬ 
ing in handy,” Peter declared. “After this I prom¬ 
ise to carry one whenever we visit ostrich farms. 
Why are the ostriches so afraid of them, Uncle 
Lee?” 

“I guess it’s on account of their eyes,” Nancy 
answered. “I noticed that the Kaffir hit at their 
heads.” 



86 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Ewing Galloway 

SOME OF THE OSTRICHES THAT PETER AND NANCY 
SAW ON THE TEN THOUSAND ACRE FARM 


“You’ve guessed right, Nancy,” said Uncle Lee. 

An evening and a night at the ostrich farm, 
and now the car turned southward over the 
jagged Swartbergen Range. Here, too, were 
farms on hillsides and in valleys, but they were 
not entirely stock farms. The so-called Black 
Mountains were delightfully green with yellow 
gorse and purple heather in profusion. 

Peter exclaimed over the ostriches at the pleas¬ 
ant Dutch farmhouse where the MacLarens en¬ 
joyed dinner. Nancy thought the feathers the 
biggest and curliest she had ever seen, even finer 
than those on the big ostrich farm she had just 
visited. The jovial farmer asked, “Why not set 
a new fashion, then, and wear my feathers? Such 
a little hat as you wear with only one quill! If 




OSTRICH FARMS AND KAFFIRS 


87 


only little girls wore big hats with many plumes, 
it would pay to raise ostriches. Now they are 
good only for dusters, and out of the skins some 
manufacturers make pocketbooks.” 

Peter chuckled at Nancy’s slight confusion. 

While Uncle Lee looked over the rich tobacco 
fields with the farmer, Peter and Nancy played 
with a boy and a girl of their own ages in the tall 
lucern, or alfalfa, which the boy explained was a 
fodder crop. 

Uncle Lee made one more stop beside some 
mammoth cactus plants. With his knife he 
hacked off a piece to show Peter and Nancy how 
very moist the inner part of the plant was. 

“During a drouth,” he explained, “the spines 
may be burned off, and then the cactus forms 
both food and drink for the cattle. A spineless 
cactus is being cultivated for forage.” 

Nancy’s eyes were suddenly upon a Chinese 
lantern tree on which pink-and-white seed pods 
swayed at her touch. For some reason Uncle Lee 
was not getting back into the car. He was strid¬ 
ing up the mountain, Peter at his heels. 

“Caves!” Peter shouted. “Stalactites!” 

It was a breath-taking experience to walk into 
ghostly rooms in the side of the mountain, some 
low, some high, but all weird. Strange winds 
blew down over what looked like organ pipes. 
Bats flitted over sparkling giant needles and 
strange, misshapen forms. But mostly it was 
lovely and elfinlike. 




88 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


At Oudtshoorn Uncle Lee abandoned his car to 
a garage keeper who agreed to send it back to 
Capetown. The MacLarens boarded a train that 
carried them to the coast where, at Port Eliza¬ 
beth, they visited this important city. 

“You saw the bales of wool that were stowed 
away in the hold of the ship when we stopped 
here,” Uncle Lee reminded the children. “And 
coming in on the train you saw Angora goats 
grazing on the uplands. These goats supply the 
long, silky hair from which mohair is woven. 
There is a large export trade in mohair here, and 
in hides and skins as well.” 

“You should buy a mohair dress, Nancy,” Peter 
suggested. 

Within the hour they were speeding northeast 
on a comfortable train. 

“Grahamstown will provide food, not for your 
stomachs, but for your minds,” Uncle Lee teased. 
“I want you to see the Rhodes University College 
there. Also your artistic education must not be 
neglected. The Bushmen have left rock pictures 
in a good many caves in South Africa.” 

Peter, looking at the Bushmen art late that 
afternoon remarked that the drawings reminded 
him of his kindergarten work in colored crayons. 
Yet Uncle Lee maintained that it was ancient 
and very distinctive. 

When the MacLarens were settled on the train 
for their next trip, Nancy asked, “Where are the 
Bushmen today?” 




OSTRICH FARMS AND KAFFIRS 


89 


“Most of them are in the Kalahari Desert,” 
Uncle Lee replied, “driven there by the Bantu 
tribes.” 

“And the Bantu tribes?” inquired Nancy. 

“We’re in their territory right now,” Uncle 
Lee explained. “These 16,000 square miles here¬ 
abouts are known as the Transkeian Territories. 
Some of the Bantus have risen in life. Once they 
were savage. Today some are intelligent farmers. 
They raise sheep, educate their children, bargain 
for European goods, and mine for diamonds. By 
the way, we’re headed for Kimberley and the dia¬ 
mond fields. The country was originally called 
Griqualand.” 

Peter and Nancy sat forward as if to urge the 
train to rush them on to glamorous Kimberley 
which they knew was about 700 miles northeast 
of Capetown. But oh, what a shock! When at 
last they were in Kimberley, they stood beside 
Uncle Lee outside the three-mile-wide circle of 
barbed-wire fences and looked forlorn. Within 
the wire was the great hole that had given forth 
the biggest and most beautiful diamonds in the 
world. Near it were sheds, company stores, hos¬ 
pitals, public baths, and kitchens, all very ordi¬ 
nary and bare in appearance. 

“The actual mining,” Uncle Lee said, “is car¬ 
ried on by about 5,000 Bantu workers who labor 
usually six months each year. Each week they 
blast out about 70,000 tons of ‘blue-ground’ which 
is then crushed, washed, rotated in drums, jiggled 



PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Ewing Galloway 

A DIAMOND MINE AT KIMBERLEY 


in troughs, and caught on surfaces of petroleum 
jelly.” 

Peter and Nancy visited the workers. These 
workers seemed to take diamonds for granted. 
Even the man who sorted the glittering stones 
through screens did not look as though he were 
excited. 

“Isn’t it thrilling?” asked Nancy, her eyes 
bright. 

“About as thrilling as sorting peas,” the man 
replied. 

Of all the fortunes made in Kimberley the Mac- 
Larens knew of at least one fortune that had 
been used in the service of the province of the 
Cape of Good Hope—the fortune of Cecil Rhodes. 








FROM BETHLEHEM TO PARYS 


W ELL, we’re now in the Orange Free State,” 
Uncle Lee announced. “There is a town 
here called Bethlehem.” 

“How lovely, Uncle Lee!” Nancy exclaimed as 
she looked out of the window over the gently un¬ 
dulating slopes of the veld where sheep wandered 
between the flat cliff formations. In the blue sky 
were white clouds, billowy like those in Biblical 
pictures. “It is like Bethlehem of Judea.” 

Just then Peter burst into the chair car with 
the announcement, “On this map I’ve found a 
town named Bethlehem. And they’ve got a Car¬ 
mel and a Bethany as well as a Paris that’s 
spelled P-a-r-y-s. Isn’t the air great! This is the 
Highveld. Who says that Africa is all hot and 
muggy?” 

“The Transvaal is part of the Highveld, too,” 
Uncle Lee said. “Sun’s hot enough, but we’re 
nearly 5,000 feet above sea level, so we can ex¬ 
pect the nights to be cold.” 

The train passed on through pleasant country¬ 
side, little villages with church spires and neat 
Dutch homes with flower gardens. Sometimes it 
steamed into a modern little town with broad 
streets, busy shops, and prideful public buildings. 
Just as over the Lowveld, windmills were fre¬ 
quently seen, and herds of fine cattle. 


91 


92 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



LITTLE VILLAGES WITH CHURCH SPIRES, AND 
NEAT DUTCH HOMES 

And now Uncle Lee was pointing out the his¬ 
toric old wagon-road on which the Boers left the 
Cape to settle in what they called the Orange 
Free State. Their reason for leaving the Cape 
and trekking into unknown country? They had 
been holders of slaves, Uncle Lee explained. Re¬ 
ligious as they were, the Boers maintained that 
the Bible upheld them in enforcing labor from 
the black man. So common was slavery among 
the Boers that in 1834 there were close to 40,000 
blacks on Boer farms. When the British govern¬ 
ment liberated these slaves, naturally the Boers 






FROM BETHLEHEM TO PARYS 


93 


clashed with it. Impoverished, these once rich 
farmers started out to seek new homes. In their 
covered wagons they headed toward what is now 
the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. At 
that time it was a wilderness full of savage Zulus. 
The Boers went in peaceably, willing to pay for 
their land with cattle. But it was not always so 
peaceful as they desired. 

“Lots like the Oregon trail,” Peter interrupted 
Uncle Lee’s story. “Only our ancestors had In¬ 
dians instead of Zulus to fight.” 

At Bloemfontein, the capital, Uncle Lee left 
the train with Peter and Nancy to see the agri¬ 
cultural show. In the big building where the 
main displays were shown, Peter and Nancy were 
most interested in the bilingual signs. 

“English on top!” cried Uncle Lee. “Afrikaans 
below!” 

“And just what is Afrikaans?” Peter inquired. 

“It is a language that just grew,” Uncle Lee 
explained. “The difficult High Dutch of Holland 
had to be simplified. English words replaced many 
hard Dutch words. Gradually French, Bantu and 
Malay words became part of the language. Some 
people call it the Taal.” 

“Is it spoken by many?” Nancy asked. 

“It is estimated that one-fifth of the Union’s 
people use it,” Uncle Lee chuckled. “The Dutch, 
who gave the root language, can’t understand 
Afrikaans. Well, let’s get out and see the town.” 

There was no hint of past privations in the 



94 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS AT BLOEMFONTEIN 

beauty of Bloemfontein, for the streets were 
broad and beautiful, the parks masses of flower¬ 
ing plants and the government buildings im¬ 
posing. 

After a refreshing night’s sleep at the hotel, 
Uncle Lee hired a car to show Peter and Nancy 
the country in the vicinity. Near the first splen¬ 
did farmhouse grazed sleek black-and-white cows. 

“What are those big cattle?” Nancy inquired. 
“I mean the ones with the big horns hauling that 
load of grass or hay.” 

“Afrikanders, Nancy,” Uncle Lee answered. 
“Africa’s own breed. They’re hardy animals, reg- 








FROM BETHLEHEM TO PARYS 


95 


ular pioneers, you might say. They can do any 
kind of draft work, and in a drouth, they can get 
along on parched grass and little water.” 

“Sheep, too.” Peter’s gaze had followed a great 
flock. “You can tell just by looking at them that 
they’re very fine animals.” 

Driving further on past the rich farm lands 
Uncle Lee drew his car up beside a deep sandy 
gulley. 

“Look!” Nancy exclaimed. “See that poor little 
settlement.” 

“They’re squatters.” Uncle Lee’s voice was 
crisp. “What we’d call poor white trash at home. 
The Africans call them bywoners. When the 
pioneer still had plenty of land and game, he per¬ 
mitted. others to squat and to hunt. These lazy 
people have not changed much from what their 
fathers and grandfathers were. There are so 
many of them in the Orange Free State that they 
are a real problem.” 

Nancy stared at the shacks, the shabby men and 
women, and the half naked children. What a con¬ 
trast to the lovely homes, the good clothes, and 
the sturdiness of the blue-eyed, fair-haired chil¬ 
dren they had seen on Orange Free State farms 
and in Orange Free State towns! 

It was with genuine regret that Peter and 
Nancy looked back on Bloemfontein as Uncle Lee 
turned the Car north, after their second night at 
the hotel. He was bound, so he mysteriously ad¬ 
mitted, for the “Maize Triangle.” 




96 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


“What’s the ‘Maize Triangle’?” asked Peter. 

“Maize means corn,” Nancy put in, “and a tri¬ 
angle has three sides.” 

“Good guess,” cried Uncle Lee. “I’m going to 
show you a cornfield that would make the farm¬ 
ers back home green with envy. This field is two 
hundred and fifty miles on each side. In fact, it’s 
half of the national yearly yield. Like to see it?” 

“I certainly would,” Peter answered enthusias¬ 
tically. “I like corn, corn on the cob, stewed corn, 
corn bread, and corn pudding.” 

The great fields of maize were one of the most 
astonishing things that Peter and Nancy had seen 
in Africa. But they had stared for only a short 
time when Uncle Lee stepped on the gas as he 
said, “On to Parys! It’s the playground of the 
Orange Free State, just as Paris is the playground 
of France.” 

Parys proved to be a charming little town with 
a population of less than 3,000. There was a river, 
the Vaal, shadowed with willows, and there were 
a great many pretty little bungalows. The hotel 
was clean, the people friendly, and the climate 
delightful. Altogether, the farewell that the Mac- 
Larens knew must be said to the Orange Free 
State could not have been said in a happier spot. 



THE SUGAR-CANE BELT OF AFRICA 


“"^TATAL!” Peter’s eyes swept the lovely se- 
1 .N eluded valley where spotted cattle grazed 
and small brown huts clustered on hillsides. “How 
did it get that name, Uncle Lee?” 

Nancy was sitting between Peter and Uncle 
Lee in the one seat of the sports roadster that 
the MacLarens had hired. “Maybe because the 
whole country is as green as a Christmas tree,” 
she answered. “The little silvery streams are like 
the tinsel raining down over the branches.” 

“Good guess,” Uncle Lee agreed, slowing down 
the car. “It’s almost accurate. Here’s the story. 
It was on Christmas day in 1497 that Vasco da 
Gama sighted the shores of this delightful coun¬ 
try. He is reputed to have said to his officers, 
‘Senores, let us name it for this, the Natal Day 
of our Lord,’ and they did!” 

As Uncle Lee skirted the base of a cliff with 
the little car Peter exclaimed, “There’s the ocean! 
The Indian Ocean again! What grand white 
beaches, and what wonderful palms and banana 
trees!” 

“Monkeys, too! Are we going back into jungle 
country, Uncle Lee?” Nancy inquired. 

Then her laugh trilled as she caught sight of 
a modern clubhouse with its outlying golf course. 
It might have been located back in Minnesota ex- 


97 


98 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


cept for one strange fact. Along the motor road 
back of it approached brown, barefoot women 
wearing bright, draped garments. The sunlight 
gleamed on their copper anklets, and, as they 
drew nearer, Nancy could see their jeweled 
nose ornaments. A little back from the shore a 
tiny white temple could be seen, an East Indian 
temple with its strange idol decorations. 

“Where are we?” Nancy stammered. “I know 
we’re in Natal geographically, but . . .” 

“I don’t blame you for being confused.” Uncle 
Lee laughed. “First of all, Nancy, I must tell 
you that we are in the sugar-cane belt of Africa. 
You remember my telling you of the hardships 
suffered by the Boers after their slaves were 
taken? Well, the same problem faced the sugar¬ 
cane planters. They solved their problem by im¬ 
porting East Indian coolies. Today half the pop¬ 
ulation here is white, half East Indian.” 

“I’d rather see Zululand!” Peter declared. 

“You’ll see it all right, Peter,” Uncle Lee prom¬ 
ised. “First we’ll run into Durban. It’s a city 
of over 200,000 people. The sugar-cane planta¬ 
tions and Zululand are north. I think, however, 
you won’t be so impatient when you get into 
Durban. It’s a city worth seeing. There are 
arcaded shops, churches and mosques, and no¬ 
where else will you find such strange costumes 
and such peculiar traffic.” 

Durban was all Uncle Lee had said it would 
be. First of all there were the docks where mer- 





THE SUGAR-CANE BELT OF AFRICA 


99 



Philip D. Gendreau 

THE DOCKS AT DURBAN 

chant ships flew flags from every land. Proudly 
a guide pointed out Durban’s own cane fleet. 
Peter would like to have gone on a whaling trip 
where he could have seen the harpoons driven into 
great fish by explosive charges, the most modern 
method of whale fishing. He had to be content 
with a glorious morning on the beach playing 
with Nancy. 

But he visited with an old sailor who spoke 
English. The sailor told of the days when these 
waters teemed with great whales. So many were 
caught that the industry died out for a time. 





100 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


Later the whales again became plentiful and in 
1911 the catch came to more than seventeen 
thousand. Each year thereafter many were cap¬ 
tured. Now the number to be taken is regulated 
by the government. 

“What are whales good for,” Peter inquired, 
“besides whalebone?” 

The old sailor chuckled. 

“Much,” he replied. “Their oil is valuable and 
their meat is good. The refuse makes a fine 
fertilizer. It contains elements the soil needs, like 
ammonia and phosphates.” 

“We could use some with much of our soil back 
home,” Peter acknowledged. 

The city itself looked altogether modern, with 
its Town Hall Square and its memorial of the 
World War. The homes were pleasant and well 
cared for. Luckily the streets had been well 
planned from the beginning. Their width was 
due to the fact that in the early days there had to 
be enough space to turn the covered wagons 
drawn by sixteen span of oxen. And this rough 
outpost where once the oxen strained in their 
harnesses Peter and Nancy found to be as lovely 
as any European town. Durban differed from 
other cities in the unusually beautiful flowers 
offered by the street flower sellers. One red flower, 
called flame-of-the-forest, particularly attracted 
the children. Flower-like, too, were the brown 
women with jewels in their noses, the little girls 
in gay pantalettes, the fruit sellers in colored 





THE SUGAR-CANE BELT OF AFRICA 


101 


turbans, and finally the jinrikisha boys in their 
strange costumes. Theirs was the queerest gait 
the children had ever seen. Actually they ran high 
on their toes, jumping into the air every few 
steps. 

“Jim Fish is in holiday mood,” Uncle Lee an¬ 
nounced during the second day’s visit as the 
MacLarens breakfasted in their own suite. “We’ll 
see the fire walkers.” 

“Who’s Jim Fish?” Peter inquired. 

“It’s a collective name for all the blacks,” Uncle 
Lee explained. “I’ve sent for a couple of Zulu 
jinrikisha boys to take you two around the town.” 

The moment Peter and Nancy stepped out of 
the hotel the two black boys appeared as if by 
magic. They were truly astounding creatures. 
From their elaborate feathered headdresses great 
ox-horns sprouted. The feathers meant that the 
runners were swift as birds, the ox-horns that 
they were as patient as oxen. The legs and feet 
were whitewashed to protect them against insects 
and injuries. Their bodies were covered with a 
surprising costume consisting of beadwork, ox 
tails, leopard pelts, dyed feathers, snake skins, 
and trinkets. Uncle Lee said Nancy’s boy went 
by the name of George Tikkie and Peter’s John 
Pence. These names they had chosen from Eng¬ 
lish names and words with which they had been 
pleased. 

Wanting to impress their passengers the jin¬ 
rikisha boys loped along in the shafts, pulling the 



102 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Publishers’ Photo Service 

THE JINRIKISHA BOYS WERE TRULY ASTOUNDING 
CREATURES 

large-wheeled carts at an exhilarating rate of 
speed. 

Nancy was tempted to remain in the hotel the 
next day, but dutifully she followed the eager 
Peter, her hand in Uncle Lee’s, as they got into 
their car to join the curious Europeans who were 
on their way to see the fire walkers. She stood 
with them in the fenced-off place, frightened but 
determined to be gallant. 

There was a parade of brilliantly-draped East 
Indians, some carrying standards hung with 
palms, others bearing on their shoulders the little 










THE SUGAR-CANE BELT OF AFRICA 


103 


shrines which contained idols of Brahma, Vishnu, 
and Siva, while still others brought up the rear 
with drums and cymbals. 

“Here come the Soutris or fire walkers!” Uncle 
Lee announced. 

Even Peter gasped. The performers were half 
naked, with rolling heads and protruding eyes. 
On their heads they carried a container filled with 
flowers to honor their favorite deity. 

In the fenced-off space the fire had died 
down, leaving a bed of red-hot coals. It was so 
hot near these coals that the onlookers had to 
shield their faces with their hats. 

To the wild beating of drums and the mad 
pounding of cymbals the first fire walker fled 
across the red hot coals. He was followed by 
the others, staggering as they ran. One woman 
fire walker chanted a weird song. Even a small 
boy flew past across the terrible surface. 

Nancy could not be persuaded to go back to 
the hotel until she had assured herself that the 
reckless ones had come through unhurt. To her 
astonishment she saw that there was not even a 
blister on the soles of their feet. 

At last the MacLarens were ready to leave 
Durban. The weather for the trip into the hill 
country was delightful. A hundred miles north¬ 
east, along the coast, the car began a long climb. 
Up, up it went through a strange country of suc¬ 
cessive bare blue hills. They were like long pleats 
in the land, Uncle Lee declared. The sugar-cane 




104 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



UNCLE LEE POINTED OUT A KRAAL OR ZULU HOME 


plantations, which appeared much like cornfields, 
were far apart and the country almost deserted. 
At last Uncle Lee pointed out a small circular 
kraal or Zulu home. 

“The Zulus have never liked living near roads,” 
he explained. “They love the hills and the streams. 
You would never know to see them today that 
once they were led by Chaka the Terrible. Chaka 
commanded a regiment that had displeased him 
to hurl itself from a giant rock. Every soldier 
obeyed without hesitation. That is only one of 
the stories told of this Zulu chief who was more 





THE SUGAR-CANE BELT OF AFRICA 


105 


than a king. But who do you suppose got around 
him?” 

“Two adventurers,” Peter responded promptly. 
“Heard about them in Durban. There was a chap 
by the name of Farewell and another by the name 
of Flynn. They got Chaka to grant trade con¬ 
cessions and territory by impressing him with the 
fact that they could kill beasts at a distance with 
‘a tube of thunder and lightning/ Where Durban 
now stands there once stood Point Flynn and Fort 
Farewell. Oh, but that sugar cane is high! 
Oughtn't we to come to a Zulu village pretty soon, 
Uncle Lee?” 

Peter's desire became a reality when early that 
afternoon Uncle Lee drove into a cluster of huts 
where there just had been a wedding. It had 
lasted two days, and everyone was exhausted 
from the feasting and dancing. But a black in¬ 
terpreter told Nancy the meaning of the beadwork 
which the bride's mother showed her. 

“The red beads,” he explained, “mean, ‘My eyes 
are red and sore from too-long watching where 
you come not.' The blue beads mean, ‘Were I a 
dove, I'd fly to pick crumbs from your door.' The 
white beads mean, ‘I am in love with you.' " 

“The beads do not sound very different from 
our valentines at home,” Nancy declared when 
Peter laughed at the sentiments. 

Back to Durban and out again over the road 
of the Voortrekkers to Pietermaritzburg, Natal's 
capital! Here the MacLarens visited the famous 



PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Publishers’ Photo Service 


ELEPHANTS IN NATAL NATIONAL PARK 

old Voortrekker church where an American mis¬ 
sionary, Doctor Daniel Lindley, once preached. 
And here, too, they visited the noted Botanical 
Gardens. Outside the town, Peter and Nancy 
stared at Howick Falls which Uncle Lee said were 
twice as high as Niagara. The falls were part 
of the Umgeni River. 

And now Uncle Lee hurried on to Ladysmith, 
so famous in the Boer War, and from Ladysmith 
on to the Natal National Park. Peter and Nancy 
were never to forget the wonderful arum lilies 
and the animals that they saw there. After that 







THE SUGAR-CANE BELT OF AFRICA 


107 


brief visit Uncle Lee rushed them to the Drakens¬ 
berg Mountains, that great range of which Natal 
is so proud. 

“Some day we'll come back for a mountain trip. 
But now we must say good-by to Natal," Uncle 
Lee said to Peter and Nancy. 

“Christmas-green Natal," said Nancy softly. 



THE TREASURE HOUSE OF AFRICA 


T HE MacLarens were traveling in the utmost 
comfort on the government-owned railway 
toward the treasure house of Africa, known as 
the Witwatersrand gold fields. 

“It's a strange thing,” Uncle Lee mused, “that 
this great mine was not discovered before. Once a 
Portuguese explorer went up the Zambezi River in 
search of Ophir, for it was known that King Solo¬ 
mon’s gold had come from East Africa. But the 
explorer found no gold, only death from malaria.” 
Nancy sighed. 

“The Voortrekkers passed right over it,” Peter 
added, “when they settled at Potchefstroom.” 

“Potchefstroom!” cried Nancy. “Peter would 
learn that one just to show off.” 

“Potchefstroom is important, Nancy,” Uncle 
Lee insisted. “It’s the oldest town in the Trans¬ 
vaal, settled by Hendrik Potgieter and his trek- 
kers around 1839. It’s a great town today, given 
to colleges and to schools of agriculture. And how 
do you suppose the Boers determined the size of 
their farms in this new country?” 

“Same as they did in some parts of the United 
States in the early days,” Peter answered. “They 
owned as many miles as they could ride in a given 
time, usually from sun-up to sunset. Must have 
been exciting.” 


108 


THE TREASURE HOUSE OF AFRICA 


109 


“It must have been a hard life,” Nancy guessed. 

“It was,” Uncle Lee agreed. “These Voortrek- 
kers built their simple thatched dwellings, planted 
their corn, and shot game to provide clothing for 
themselves and harnesses for their animals. Look 
out the window, Nancy. Those long-horned Afri¬ 
kander cattle are descendants of the oxen that 
pulled the carts in pioneer days. But out of all 
that rude life there has come prosperity. Potchef- 
stroom, as Pve said, is the educational center of 
the Transvaal, but the capital is at Pretoria. IPs 
a lovely modern place situated at the head of a 
wide valley. We'll probably see the capital build¬ 
ings. They are built mostly from material ob¬ 
tained right here in Africa. Johannesburg, how¬ 
ever, has the real story.” 

“Tell us about it,” Nancy begged. “I know 
about George Walker stubbing his toe against a 
ten-billion-dollar gold reef. He was so tired that 
he actually stumbled. His toe kicked up some 
earth and rock, and on the toe of his shoe was gold 
—real, shining, yellow gold!” 

“So you know that tale!” Uncle Lee chuckled. 
“It must have been true, for soon after George 
Walker stumbled upon his find, a little mining 
village appeared—just tents and covered wagons 
at first and a few tin shacks later on. Soon there 
were 3,000 people, and these 3,000 founded the 
infant town of Johannesburg. Everybody was 
welcome to join the colony, for no matter how 
much gold was crudely mined, the reef showed 




110 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


no signs of giving out. Prices were exorbitant 
and water scarce, but who cared? There was gold 
enough to pay for all the supplies needed.” 

“And now,” Peter spoke up, “Johannesburg is 
no longer a mining camp. It’s the largest town 
in Africa south of Cairo. One of the men on the 
train says its population is 381,000. He says its 
plans were drawn with a golden pencil. There 
was so much gold from the mines that the build¬ 
ers could carry out any idea of which they 
dreamed. A woman in the chair car called it 
Jo’berg and said it was the Paris of Africa. 
Nancy will probably want a new frock.” 

The MacLarens, although prepared for a big 
prosperous city on what had once been a treeless 
veld, were amazed at its beauty. The arcaded 
shops that shaded the pavements were the most 
delightful Peter and Nancy had ever seen. 

As in all these towns there were fine public 
buildings. The Town Hall, Law Courts, and 
Stock Exchange were all impressive. Of course, 
one expected handsome public buildings. What 
pleased the MacLarens most with Johannesburg 
were the lovely parks, the beautiful suburban 
homes, and the fine Witwatersrand University. 
There were club-houses and motor cars, of course; 
but it seemed to Peter and Nancy that the pioneer 
spirit still lived in the town. Everybody was 
friendly. 

“From America? Well, you people build up, 
we build down. Our skyscrapers may be as tall 





THE TREASURE HOUSE OF AFRICA 


111 



Ewing Galloway 


THE INTERIOR OF A MINE 7,500 FEET BELOW 
THE SURFACE 

as yours, but they’re in the ground. Want to see 
a mine?” one of the men asked. 

Of course they did. 

Neither Peter nor Nancy could realize that 
those great silver hills were diggings from the 
gold mine. But when they descended by a lift— 
British for elevator—into the interior of the 
earth and beheld an underground, electric-lighted 
town, they were not surprised about the hills. 
Their ears roared and ached. 

“You’ve dropped 4,000 feet in three minutes,” 





112 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


Uncle Lee said, and his voice sounded far away. 

Finally the children were told that they were 
7,500 feet below the surface and that, if it were 
not for the giant ventilating plant above, they 
would not be able to stand the dust or the heat in 
this underground city. 

“It’s a real town,” Nancy said with awe. “It 
has avenues and cross streets, made with tunnels, 
with busy workmen everywhere.” 

Peter watched the pay dirt being piled into 
carts by the sweating black miners. These carts 
were pulled up steep inclines by busy engines. 
At the platforms they were loaded into big ele¬ 
vators. There, far above, the ore was to be 
pounded by hammers or crushers for the grind¬ 
ing mill. Afterward it was to be mixed with 
water, deposited, smelted, and further refined by 
a long process. 

“The natives live in an enclosure for three 
months at a time. When they leave they are in¬ 
spected to see if they are trying to carry out gold, 
or if they have any small injury for which the 
company might be liable,” explained Uncle Lee, 
when the party saw some natives lined up at the 
gate. 

When the trip was all over, Nancy stared at 
the gold ready for shipment. She had not under¬ 
stood all the processes, but she knew that those 
opaque yellow bricks in the shipping room were 
extremely valuable. Peter panted as he tried to 
lift one. 



THE TREASURE HOUSE OF AFRICA 


113 



Ewing Galloway 

“WHEN THEY LEAVE, THE NATIVES ARE INSPECTED” 

“No wonder it’s heavy!” he declared. “Uncle 
Lee said it’s worth five thousand pounds in Eng¬ 
lish money. That’s about $25,000.” 

“The Transvaal has valuable platinum and 
diamond deposits, too,” Uncle Lee told them. 
“There’s asbestos and iron, as well. But I want 
to show you some other treasures—not mineral, 
but quite as valuable.” 

An over-night journey took the MacLarens into 
the Lowveld. Here sheep roamed in flocks, eat¬ 
ing the plentiful grass as they moved over the 
country. Now appeared encircling mountains, 
part of the Drakensberg Range, Uncle Lee said. 
The De Kaap Valley opened up. It was named 









114 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


The Cape because it reminded the homesick 
Voortrekkers of the real Cape. The mountain 
mists from a distance looked like the sea. 

Barberton, a town that once boasted a famous 
gold rush, proved to be delightfully hospitable. 
The MacLarens settled down in its hotel and made 
excursions into the surrounding country to see 
tobacco and cotton growing and to enjoy the 
citrus trees. There seemed to be a special interest 
in eucalyptus trees, too, for many seedlings were 
being planted. 

Uncle Lee was constantly occupied in getting 
information about the Kruger National Park. 
This Park he learned was a game preserve on 
the Mozambique frontier. Here in a district of 
some 8,000 square miles he expected to find Afri¬ 
can animals which were fast disappearing due 
to the advance of civilization and the thickly in¬ 
habited regions of South Africa. Uncle Lee was 
not eager to include Nancy in his plans for a 
trip into the preserve, but she declared she was 
not going to gaze at eucalyptus trees, however 
fast they grew, while Peter watched lions. 

Uncle Lee had secured a dependable car and a 
native driver. Although the trip along the wood¬ 
land trails was supposed to be safe, Uncle Lee 
did not care to be lost with two children among 
untamed animals. The car was hardly under way 
when a herd of zebras trotted out of the woods 
and galloped alongside the strangers for some 
distance. Then they veered swiftly back into the 





THE TREASURE HOUSE OF AFRICA 


115 



Paul’s Photos 


A HERD OF IMPALAS AT A WATER HOLE 

woods. Deer broke through the brush. Further 
on monkeys chattered from the trees. In one place 
a great baboon ordered his family back among the 
rocks but continued to stare solemnly until the car 
had passed. A herd of impalas grazed at a dis¬ 
tance. 

Once a group of three lions was sighted. Two 
of them continued to trot across the veld while the 
third sat down to watch Uncle Lee’s party. 

At a round windowless hut, Uncle Lee stopped 
to open his supplies for refreshments. Again the 
car moved on. Once a pair of leopards slunk 





116 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


Publishers’ Photo Service 


ONCE A GROUP OF THREE LIONS WAS SIGHTED 

through the high grass by the roadside. Wilde¬ 
beests crossed the road. A number of giraffes 
appeared in the tall trees. Two fluffy lion cubs, 
like shaggy puppies, followed their mother along 
the trail. 

The trip through Kruger National Park with 
its wild animal life, proved a delightful interlude 
after the large cities and the farms of South 
Africa. 

Peter and Nancy visited the famous public 
buildings in Pretoria, but they were most in¬ 
terested in the home of Paul Kruger, who had 
been both dictator and president of the Trans¬ 
vaal. Uncle Lee summed him up humorously 
by saying that he drank strong coffee, smoked 
strong pipes, and used strong words. Peter and 
Nancy went to look at a statue of him. It was 
in a high place overlooking the city. He was a 
sturdy old figure and below him, grouped around 
the pedestal, were four old Voortrekkers who 








THE TREASURE HOUSE OF AFRICA 


117 


looked much like the pioneers of their own Ameri¬ 
can history. 

“His top hat, they say, is hollow,” Peter ob¬ 
served. 

“That’s so the birds can have a drinking-place 
after it rains,” Uncle Lee explained solemnly. 

“To think,” Nancy remarked, “that we should 
have had to come to the Transvaal to find the 
most unique bird-drinking fountain!” 

“Before we leave the Transvaal,” Uncle Lee 
promised, “I’m going to take you two out to see 
the largest irrigation project in Africa.” 

“Everybody says irrigation will make Africa’s 
deserts bloom,” Nancy said. 

“Gold, diamonds, water power! It’s all in the 
treasure house, isn’t it, Uncle Lee?” Peter asked, 
much impressed. 

“There’s still more, if we had time to look at 
it.” Uncle Lee was enthusiastic, too. “There are 
marvelous tobacco fields around Rustenburg and 
there are many fine apple orchards in the High- 
veld area. And speaking of diamonds, it was in 
the Premier Mine, east of Pretoria, that the 
noted stone known as the Cullinan diamond was 
found. It weighed one and three-fourths pounds 
and was four inches long.” 

“I know!” Peter shouted. “It was the largest 
diamond ever discovered! We saw it among the 
British crown jewels in London. It had been cut 
up into a hundred and five gems.” 

“The second largest diamond,” put in Uncle 



118 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


Lee, “the Excelsior, was found in this region also, 
at Jagersfontein. It weighed 969^ carats uncut, 
I believe.” 

“I suppose,” observed Nancy, “that the treasure 
house thinks most of its metals and precious 
stones, but I like the wild animals and the flowers 
best. I think those big, ragged-looking pink and 
white flowers they call protea are lovely.” 

“Others agree with you, Nancy.” Uncle Lee 
started back down the hill. “The protea is the 
national flower.” 





GREAT FALLS, GIANT TREES, AND 
A CITY IN RUINS 


T HE MacLarens had left Pretoria by rail and 
had been traveling, so Uncle Lee estimated, for 
about three hundred and fifty miles in a north¬ 
easterly direction. 

“We are still in the Northern Transvaal,” he 
explained as he sat between Peter and Nancy in 
the observation car. “By morning we'll reach 
Messina on the Great Limpopo.” 

“Or Crocodile River,” Peter put in. “The Eng¬ 
lishman in the coach ahead says there's a beau¬ 
tiful bridge 1,500 feet long over the river near 
there. It was built as a memorial to a pioneer 
by the name of Alfred Beit. We'll have to remem¬ 
ber all of these pioneers, Nancy—Paul Kruger, 
George Walker, and, of course, Cecil Rhodes.” 

At Messina Uncle Lee was again to hire a car. 
As the decidedly ancient machine, laden with the 
MacLaren luggage, rattled over the fine new 
bridge, Uncle Lee said, “In crossing this river, 
you cross the border between the Union of South 
Africa and Southern Rhodesia.” 

To the amazement of Peter and Nancy there 
was a very definite change. As the car rattled 
along the road that was more like a trail, both of 
Uncle Lee's passengers realized that towns and 
villages had been left behind. They were in a 


119 


120 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


real desert; all about them for miles nothing but 
sand and thorny bushes. 

Across the trail that Uncle Lee was following 
were tracks of zebras and lions. In the evening 
as they approached a small outpost, which was 
merely a crude hotel, hundreds of lights gleamed 
in the darkness. They shone like topazes, the 
eyes of wild animals, beginning to prowl for their 
evening meal. In the daytime the desert had 
seemed practically deserted, but Peter and Nancy 
realized that these animals must have been there 
all the time. 

Although tired, the MacLarens went on the next 
morning. The desert continued for over a hun¬ 
dred miles. Uncle Lee said that he expected soon 
to reach Fort Victoria. There were no villages in 
sight, and no natives, but once a thrilling thing 
happened. A whole herd of zebras raced along¬ 
side the car for the better part of a mile, then 
turned out again into the desert, as they had done 
once before. They were like frisky ponies, and 
oh, so handsome, with their beautiful stripes. 

The trees were mostly baobab. Uncle Lee de¬ 
clared that the baobab tree was always slender 
and graceful in its youth, but the ones they saw 
here were of enormous thickness, although none 
of them grew to a great height. 

“That huge one over there appears to be thirty 
feet across/’ remarked Peter, as he paused to 
measure the diameter of the enormous old tree 
with his eye. 




GREAT FALLS AND GIANT TREES 


121 



Publishers’ Photo Service 


A BAOBAB TREE OF ENORMOUS THICKNESS THOUGH 
NOT OF GREAT HEIGHT 


“Some of these giant baobab trees measure 
thirty-seven feet in circumference,” said Uncle 
Lee. 

“They are such a queer, leaden color,” Nancy 
observed. 

“I wonder if the wood is as hard as it looks.” 
Peter squinted into the sunlight. 

“No, Peter, it is not.” Surprisingly, Nancy 
offered the information. “I heard one of Uncle 
Lee’s acquaintances in the chair car say the wood 
is soft. It’s used for making paper, cloth and 
rope.” 

“The blossoms are pure white, shaped like 





122 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


balls,” said Uncle Lee. “Some of them are five 
inches across. The fruit is a gourd, sometimes 
fifteen inches long. It is known as 'monkey bread/ 
The acid pulp of the gourd is eaten by the natives 
or made into a beverage. The gourds are used for 
dippers and the seeds that are found imbedded in 
them are ground into meal by the natives. The 
leaves and bark contain medicinal elements. The 
bark is used also to make rope and cloth. So you 
can see how important the baobab tree is to the 
natives.” 

“Let’s stop and have a good look at one,” Peter 
suggested. 

Uncle Lee obligingly brought the car to a stop. 

“Climb up, Peter,” he directed, “and take a 
peek into that big trunk over there. It looks hol¬ 
low to me.” 

“It’s grand climbing,” Peter shouted back, five 
minutes later. “Easier than our gnarled old apple 
tree at home. These branches are just made for 
climbing. It certainly is hollow. Uncle Lee. Looks 
rather dark. It’s water, I imagine. Yes, it is, rain 
water!” 

“I wanted you to see that,” Uncle Lee con¬ 
fessed, approaching the tree with Nancy. “These 
big hollow trees often serve as water supply for 
the natives.” 

He picked what looked like a dried-up little 
apple, which he said was a withered fruit of the 
baobab tree. Crushing the shell-like covering, he 
shook out some powdery substance into his hand. 





GREAT FALLS AND GIANT TREES 


123 


“This acid powder/' he called up to Peter, “is 
much like cream of tartar. If you were thirsty 
in the desert, you could mix some of it with that 
stagnant water and have a safe drink." 

Peter and Nancy were not enthusiastic about 
trying such a drink. 

“It's good for fever," Uncle Lee insisted. “At 
least the Boers say it is." 

Peter climbed down. The sun was hotter than 
he had realized. 

“In the wet season," Uncle Lee said, as he 
started the car again, “the top branches are full 
of leaves, forming a giant green umbrella." 

“I could use one right now." Nancy wiped her 
wet face. “I'll be glad to see something green and 
fresh again." 

When the desert stretches finally began to 
change into green vegetation, Uncle Lee re¬ 
marked, “We must be getting close to Fort Vic¬ 
toria. It's the oldest white settlement in South¬ 
ern Rhodesia." 

Peter and Nancy thought it one of the pleas¬ 
antest little towns they had ever seen. Uncle Lee 
teasingly remarked something about any town 
being welcome after a desert. But he himself 
seemed pleased with the nice little hotel, the 
shaded streets and the attractive homes. It was 
good to have fine meals and clean comfortable 
beds. Peter and Nancy could not stay down in 
the lobby long enough to hear Uncle Lee discuss 
Zimbabwe with the landlord. They thought it was 



124 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


just another town, anyway, and they needed 
sleep. 

In the morning Uncle Lee turned his car again 
into desert-like country. 

“Where are we going?” asked Nancy. 

“Only about seventeen miles from here,” Uncle 
Lee answered lightly. But Peter and Nancy felt 
rather dismayed. 

Such hopeless-looking country! The rounded 
hills rolled on and on, away to the horizon. The 
grass was yellow and sere. Cactus was plentiful 
and very thorny. 

“Zimbabwe means ‘of stone construction/ ” 
Uncle Lee offered. 

Peter and Nancy looked at each other wearily. 
They were plainly bored. 

Then, suddenly on the desert they saw a city 
of stone buildings! A city, yes, but a strangely 
built city. A temple and an acropolis, or fortress, 
came into view first. Then appeared enormous 
walls between twenty and thirty feet in height. 
They were thick, too, about fifteen feet at the 
base and ten feet at the top. The car came to a 
stop and the MacLarens approached the great 
stone city curiously. Where were its inhabitants? 
Who were they and how did they live? Peter ran 
forward with a shout that echoed among the 
walls, but no one answered. The strange city of 
stone was deserted. 

“Who built it?” Peter asked, surveying the 
impressive ruins. “And if the people who built it 




GREAT FALLS AND GIANT TREES 


125 


don't want to live here, why shouldn't the na¬ 
tives?" 

“One question at a time, Peter," said Uncle 
Lee, laughing. “The natives say it is the work of 
the devil and won't come near it. No one really 
knows just when and by whom this city was 
built. Some believe it was built by Phoenicians or 
Arabs from Asia Minor. I'm afraid much exca¬ 
vation and exploration remains to be done, and 
we may never know any more than we do now. 

“This region has many quarries and in an¬ 
cient times possessed the richest gold mines of 
which we know. Some scientists say that from 
these mines came the gold used in building King 
Solomon's temple, and that some of the Queen of 
Sheba's wealth was obtained here. Perhaps this 
city was built for the workers in the mines, as a 
means of protection from the uncivilized natives. 
That ruin over there to the right looks like a 
fortress." 

Peter and Nancy looked closely at part of a 
broken wall. It had been built of rectangular 
blocks of granite, thousands and thousands of 
them. 

Peter said, “Not a column or a rounded stone. 
Nothing but small granite blocks." 

“I don't see any inscriptions, either." Nancy 
looked up at what must have been a temple. 
“There are plain blocks and more plain blocks." 

Uncle Lee strode on to the acropolis. 

“A chevron-like pattern runs around the crest 



126 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


of the walls,” he remarked, “but otherwise, as you 
youngsters say, they are just plain blocks that 
were placed very carefully and balanced just 
right. Nothing here to tell when this city was 
built, who built it, or why it was deserted. Noth¬ 
ing at all! But there’s no reason why we can’t 
imagine a race of native Africans of fine culture 
working here at one time and living splendid 
lives.” 

As Uncle Lee drove his car over the rolling 
plains again, Nancy seemed to hear an echo say¬ 
ing, “Nothing at all!” 

And yet that was not quite true. The entire 
region was full of granite rocks, big stones and 
little stones, rounded and uneven. The car was 
now about halfway between Zimbabwe and the 
Zambezi River. 

“Is this district uninhabited?” Nancy asked. 
“Like Zimbabwe?” 

“Well, it’s sparsely settled,” Uncle Lee admitted. 
“There should be a village near here. Over there 
are some ancient mining works.” 

A kraal did prove to be close by, but it con¬ 
sisted of one ruined house and a small group 
of huts. The ruined house had belonged to a mis¬ 
sionary who had left, never to return. In the huts 
native families waited hopefully. 

“We’ve just come from the richest city in 
Africa,” Nancy mused, “to the most thoroughly 
deserted one. And now to the saddest.” 

“Only it isn’t a city.” Peter was practical. 




GREAT FALLS AND GIANT TREES 


127 



Ewing Galloway 


A NATIVE VILLAGE NEAR BULAWAYO 


The MacLarens made camp in the ruined house. 
The sun had shone hotly all day long-. Now that it 
had set, sudden darkness descended and the air 
grew cold. The children shivered in their blan¬ 
kets. In the quiet they heard strange buzzings 
and hummings, rustlings and snortings, and once 
a hyena’s cruel laugh echoed among the rocks. 

The water Uncle Lee had carried was frozen 
by breakfast time. Here in the sand and rocks in 
the high dry, light air, there was nothing to re¬ 
tain the heat. As soon as the sun had set, the 
cold crept in everywhere. Just before dawn the 







128 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Publishers’ Photo Service 

THE ZAMBEZI BRIDGE BELOW VICTORIA FALLS 

whole world seemed shivery. But the rising sun 
never failed to chase away the gloom. 

The little car hurried on to Salisbury, then 
turned southwest to Bulawayo. Here was a town 
that proved to be very orderly. There was a clean 
English hotel with bath tubs. The children were 
impressed with the statue of Cecil Rhodes in the 
center of Bulawayo’s main street, and later the 
MacLarens motored out about twenty-eight miles 
into the Matopo Hills to visit his grave. They 
gazed at the famous empire-builder’s grave hewn 
out of solid rock. They read his epitaph engraved 








GREAT FALLS AND GIANT TREES 


129 


on a plain bronze plate. Peter read aloud: “Here 
lie the remains of Cecil John Rhodes.” 

From Bulawayo the party went to Livingstone, 
where Uncle Lee planned to visit Victoria Falls, 
just seven miles away. 

Slowly the MacLarens moved over the great 
bridge across the Zambezi River. Awestruck, they 
stared at the sight of millions of tons of water 
thundering down from a front a mile long, but at 
no point was there more than a third of the falls 
visible. On one side of the bridge the fine spray 
drenched them, but they did not care. On the 
other side they stared down at least four hun¬ 
dred feet, where the river twisted and turned 
to hollow out a giant basin for itself, before it 
began its thousand mile pilgrimage to the ocean. 
The magnitude of the falls was overwhelming. 
Uncle Lee said they were almost two and a half 
times as high as Niagara. 

“The native name for Victoria Falls, Mosi-oa- 
Tunya , Smoke That Thunders, is a poetic descrip¬ 
tion,said Uncle Lee. “The natives imagined 
that the spray resembled the light smoke of the 
veld fire ascending toward the sky, and that the 
roar of the falls sounded like the reverberations of 
the hard thunderstorms for which South Africa 
is known.” 

Not one rainbow but many shot through the 
mists that rose from the spray of thundering 
Victoria Falls. 

“See the rainbows!” exclaimed Nancy. “They 



130 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Publishers’ Photo Service 


A PART OF VICTORIA FALLS 

lie like bands of colors across the mist. I never 
saw so many at one time.” 

The MacLarens knew that they were looking 
on unearthly beauty. Peter and Nancy could only 
drink in the wonder before them. 

“Let's come back and see the falls by moon¬ 
light,” begged Nancy. 

“Very well,” said Uncle Lee, “but if we do that, 
we must see the town of Livingstone now.” 

Peter and Nancy turned back to be certain it 
was not a mirage. But no! There it was, a great 
wall of vapor of purest white mist rising heaven¬ 
ward. 







THE LAST OF THE WORLD’S FRONTIERS 

I N THE evening after the moon rose Peter and 
Nancy came back with Uncle Lee again, this 
time on foot. The moon had made of the rising 
vapor a gold and silver door shot with rainbow 
colors. It was like an ethereal entrance into 
heaven. Small wonder that the Arabs had called 
it “the end of the world.” 

As they walked back to their hotel Uncle Lee 
said, “Seems strange, but it was the middle of 
the nineteenth century before a white man ever 
set eyes on this waterfall.” 

“Then it’s a new country to the white man, 
isn’t it, Uncle Lee?” Peter inquired. 

“Certainly is,” Uncle Lee agreed. “Even now 
there are less than ten thousand Europeans to a 
million natives.” 

“But why two Rhodesias?” Nancy asked. 
“Natural geographical division, for one thing,” 
Uncle Lee explained. “Southern Rhodesia is sep¬ 
arated from Northern Rhodesia by the Zambezi 
River. The Zambezi, the Limpopo and the Sabi 
form a watershed and along this center axis the 
English have run their railway, from Plumtree 
through Bulawayo to Salisbury, the chief town of 
Mashonaland. In Northern Rhodesia, while the 
transportation has been largely by porters and 
canoes, there is now a railway running from 


131 


132 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



NATIVES OF RHODESIA 

Livingstone to Elizabethville through the capital 
Lusaka and on into the Congo. Of course there 
are still few roads except for the famous motor 
road from Fort Jameson to Blantyre.” 

“What natives live in Rhodesia ?" Nancy in¬ 
quired. “The black servants in the hotel all look 
more or less alike." 

“There are about fifty different tribes," Uncle 
Lee explained. “The Awemba, Achewa, Angoni, 
Asenga, Awisa, Alala, Botoka, Barozi . . . ” 

“Uncle Lee, you're making up those names," 
Nancy accused, but Uncle Lee said that it would 
perhaps be easier to make them up than to learn 
the real names. 

“The next language I learn," Peter declared, 







THE LAST OF THE WORLD’S FRONTIERS 


133 


“will be Afrikaans. I suppose that's what they 
talk in the hotel." 

“It is," Uncle Lee agreed. “But English will 
do as well. Peter, remember that this is the last 
of the world's frontiers." 

At daybreak Peter and Nancy were hurried to 
the station. Even above the trees they could see 
the cloud of smoky vapor from Victoria Falls and 
hear the low humming, like millions of little water¬ 
falls. On the opposite bank was the rain forest 
shot through with rainbows. 

On the platform beside the MacLarens were 
some matter-of-fact Englishmen in corded riding 
breeches and soft hats. They were all smoking 
Cavendish pipes. 

“We could go straight through from Cape¬ 
town to the Congo on this railroad," Uncle Lee 
declared. “While Victoria Falls is perhaps the 
greatest natural wonder in the world, this rail¬ 
road is one of the greatest man-made wonders. 
While we wait for the train, I want to tell you 
a story." 

Peter and Nancy sat down on a bench near the 
station platform, their eyes on the clouds of mist 
against the blue sky, their ears ever conscious 
of the pounding water. 

“Once in a small mission in Bechuanaland, there 
was a Scotch religious worker. From time to 
time a strange tale came to his ears. He could not 
be certain of the actual facts, for the story had 
passed by word of mouth from kraal to kraal 



134 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


all through Rhodesia. A kraal, you know, is 
merely a protected village. There’s usually a rim 
of rocks around the huts.” 

“Yes, we know,” Peter put in hastily. “Please 
go on.” 

“These various herders talked of a waterfall 
somewhere in the jungle far north.” 

Uncle Lee squinted into the blue sky. “The 
story-tellers insisted always that the waterfall 
was so mighty that even the spray from it looked 
like a great white cloud on the horizon. The 
thunder of the water could be heard four days’ 
trek away.” 

“Victoria Falls!” Peter and Nancy exclaimed 
together. 

“It took this young man three years to reach 
the falls of which the herders had told him,” 
Uncle Lee continued. “He followed the Zambezi 
until it reached a cliff about four hundred feet 
high. Of course you know that the whole river 
hurtles over this cliff. The young man was so 
impressed by the wonder of it that he named the 
falls after his young Queen.” 

“Victoria Falls!” Peter and Nancy said again. 

“On the trunk of a near-by tree, he carved his 
name. What was it?” Uncle Lee inquired. “Don’t 
say Victoria Falls.” 

“It was David Livingstone,” Peter guessed. 
“The island in the middle of the falls is named 
after him, and so is the city near by.” 

“Right. He was the first white man to see Vic- 





THE LAST OF THE WORLD’S FRONTIERS 


135 


toria Falls. Then came Stanley with his porters 
and his mile-long caravan,” Uncle Lee continued, 
studying the heavy timber growth along the 
river. “And after Stanley came the third ex¬ 
plorer. Perhaps he was the most important. He 
was a shabby, rather stocky man with fearless, 
keen eyes. He saw that the country was rich in 
gold and other minerals and in cattle, too. He 
wanted it for his country so much that he made 
his way into the kraal of Toben Guela, the war¬ 
like chief of the Matabele. So much did this 
thick-set Englishman impress the great chief that 
he signed a treaty with the British. England then 
turned the country over to a chartered company 
headed by this man. Who was he?” 

“Cecil Rhodes!” Peter and Nancy answered 
in unison. 

The train puffed in. A very fine train it was, 
with dining and observation cars and Pullman 
sleepers. It was also a very expensive train, so the 
MacLarens were to learn. 

Peter and Nancy slept luxuriously that night 
and met Uncle Lee at breakfast, starry-eyed and 
eager. The air was clear and cold and invigorat¬ 
ing. The train moved through rolling, grass-cov¬ 
ered uplands. Here and there herds of cattle 
grazed. Substantial, whitewashed houses came 
into view. Hills in the distance were bluish gray. 

Everywhere at the stations ruddy, sun-tanned 
Englishmen waited for their mail. Invariably 
they wore broad hats and flannel shirts like 





136 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Publishers’ Photo Service 

PETER EXCLAIMED OVER A NATIVE HUT ON A 
PLATFORM 

American cowboys. Their fine saddle horses were 
tied to the station fences. Sometimes Nancy 
caught a glimpse of a woman in her garden. Al¬ 
most always the woman wore a sunbonnet like 
one of our pioneer women. 

Once Peter exclaimed over a native hut on a 
platform in a field of maize or “mealies,” as the 
porter called the tall corn. The corn had been cut, 
however, but the hut remained for another year. 

“Some one has to sit there day and night,” the 
porter explained. “Some one’s got to chase the 
wild pigs and the baboons. They like mealies, 
too.” 

In all these English towns, such as Broken Hill, 
where there are famous lead and zinc deposits, 
and Elizabethville, the children learned that no 







THE LAST OF THE WORLD’S FRONTIERS 


137 


natives were permitted to remain within the city 
limits after dark. Even in the daytime a native 
must have a pass, Uncle Lee said. 

It was while Peter and Nancy were in the 
Rhodesias that they were invited to visit a tem¬ 
porary camp where Robin Randolph and his 
parents were photographing baby animals. Uncle 
Lee was quite as willing to go as were the chil¬ 
dren. Here, in a lovely, wooded spot, not far 
from Lake Tanganyika the Randolphs had set 
up camp. There were comfortable, portable tents 
and screened shelters. 

The children learned a great deal about wild 
animals. 

Mr. Randolph told them of seeing a very young 
baby hippopotamus coming out of the water with 
its mother. The baby’s thick hide was wrinkled 
and leathery in appearance—a perfect replica of 
its mother. 

“A camel’s a mean animal at times,” Robin 
informed his visitors. “He bites and he spits, 
and he’s very stubborn. But he can go days with¬ 
out food and water, and nothing has been found 
to take his place on the desert. A mother camel 
will take care of her own, but she will not care 
for another’s offspring.” 

Peter and Nancy were delighted with the small 
elephant who had not yet learned to use his trunk. 
It hung limp, and it was Robin who remarked 
that a baby elephant had to learn to use his trunk 
in much the same way that Peter and Nancy had 



138 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Chicago Daily News 

A BABY HIPPOPOTAMUS AND ITS MOTHER 


to learn to use a spoon. Mr. Randolph called the 
elephant Tembo, which he said was the word for 
elephant in Swahili, the native language. Tembo 
was quite as much fun as the white-bearded mon¬ 
key who came to visit camp. He always perched 
on Nancy’s shoulder to look at himself in her 
mirror. He chatted with the mirrored monkey 
as with a friend. 

Robin’s chief pet was a baby lion, found by Mr. 
Randolph just after it had been born. Mr. Ran¬ 
dolph, fearing that the parents had been killed 
by hunters, brought the shivering baby to camp. 






THE LAST OF THE WORLD’S FRONTIERS 


139 



Acme 


THE BABY LION 

He had weighed less than three pounds at birth, 
and Mrs. Randolph said he was just a handful 
of brown and yellow fuzz except for his big, 
sharp claws. 

On the day that Peter and Nancy arrived with 
Uncle Lee, the baby lion was three days old. 
Nancy stroked the black velvet triangles of ears 
and gazed in wonder at the strong little front 
paws. Peter remarked on the heavy lower jaw. 
Luckily there was a good supply of canned milk 
on hand, and the little lion ate so fast from the 
milk bottle that he hiccoughed. 









140 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


While the children enjoyed the other pets they 
continued to watch over this tiny king of beasts. 
There was a funny one-sided expression on his 
face as one eye began to open on the ninth day. 

“Just like our cats at home,” Peter remarked. 

“He doesn’t see very well as yet,” Nancy de¬ 
cided. “But he’s so cunning, with his little tri¬ 
angular face and blue eye. His ears are so soft 
and furry. Even though he may not see so well, 
he can hear perfectly. He turns to me instantly 
the moment I speak.” 

When the MacLarens left, the little lion could 
see. He walked around chairs instead of bump¬ 
ing into them. Soon, Mr. Randolph declared, he 
would be teething. After that he would be able to 
tackle a bone, and, by the time camp was ready 
to break up, he could take care of himself. Often 
he mewed like a little kitten, although he did try 
baby growls. When he was frightened, he made 
a little growling sound, backing away into some 
dark corner. But he was very playful, and he 
seemed fond of Peter and Nancy and Robin. 

“If only,” said Nancy, “all the animals in 
Africa were babies, what a lovely time we could 
have!” 




THE PORTUGUESE COLONIES 


P ORTUGUESE East Africa,” Uncle Lee ex¬ 
plained as the train sped onward, “lies north 
and south between two countries we have already 
visited, Tanganyika Territory on its north and 
Natal on its south. It faces the Indian Ocean.” 
“Which we remember very well,” Nancy put in. 
“Its back is up against Rhodesia and other 
places.” Uncle Lee sank back comfortably. “The 
Zambezi just about cuts the country in half and 
the Limpopo or Crocodile River flows through it 
not far from the southern boundary.” 

“Seems we have the information,” Peter 
laughed. “Why bother about the visit?” 

“Because Beira, a port city, is like nothing else.” 
Uncle Lee took another long cool drink and tin¬ 
kled the ice in his glass. “Beira is—well, perhaps 
it isn’t fair to give unpleasant impressions.” 

“Oh, you haven’t, Uncle Lee,” Nancy teased. 
“I just know we’re going to have a lovely time in 
Beira.” 

The region was still grassy rolling country and 
the air was cool, almost cold, when Peter and 
Nancy retired for the night. 

Morning brought a new scene, steaming jungles 
with glaring sands in between and at the station 
sallow, feverish-looking men. The MacLarens re¬ 
alized that they had left the plateaus of Rhodesia 


141 


142 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


and were getting into the swampy lands near the 
sea. 

“Remind me,” said Uncle Lee, “that you young¬ 
sters must take your quinine. We’ve been lucky 
thus far—not a touch of malaria, or blackwater 
fever.” 

As the day wore on, the heat grew more in¬ 
tense. 

“I don’t believe it can be this hot,” Peter de¬ 
clared, comically. 

He looked at the thermometer in the observa¬ 
tion car. 

“It’s a hundred and eighteen and going up!” 
he shouted. “Now I know it wasn’t just my imag¬ 
ination.” 

The hot mist rose like clouds, and at the sta¬ 
tion platforms Portuguese soldiers wearing hel¬ 
mets stared without enthusiasm at passengers 
looking out of the window. Beneath their helmets 
their cheeks were gaunt. Evidently they had felt 
too miserable to spend much time pressing their 
uniforms which were invariably wrinkled. The 
uniforms were yellowish; so were the faces. 

At Beira the train pulled in on a wooden plat¬ 
form. The station house was a corrugated iron 
shanty.. An uncomfortable Englishman was 
grumbling because he had just learned that trains 
left only twice a week for Salisbury, the capital 
of his beloved Southern Rhodesia. 

“Only a night’s journey from Rhodesia to the 
east coast, but what a difference!” Uncle Lee 



THE PORTUGUESE COLONIES 


143 


was grumbling too. “Beira is the hottest and un- 
healthiest place in all Africa. Why did I bring 
you youngsters here?” 

“You wanted us to see Mozambique,” Peter 
reminded him. “And Beira is part of it.” 

“The harbor looks busy,” Nancy observed as 
she rode along in a two-seated, hand-pushed 
“trolley” beside Uncle Lee. There was a hood 
over the top to keep off the direct rays of the 
sun. Peter was following in another trolley, his 
companion the irate Englishman. 

“Jams from England, harvesters from the 
United States, and jackknives from Germany,” 
Uncle Lee said, his eyes on the ships. “Intended 
for Rhodesia and the interior. Well, this is a 
place to come into and to go from; but it’s no 
place to stay.” 

The big black man who pushed them along the 
streets deep with sand gave Nancy a broad, white¬ 
toothed smile when Uncle Lee paid him. 

“Aren’t there any horses, Uncle Lee?” Nancy 
inquired. “Or automobiles? And where are the 
pedestrians?” 

“All answered in one word. Climate,” Uncle 
Lee replied as he took Nancy’s arm and led her 
up the broad veranda of a really fine-looking 
hotel. He shouted for Peter to follow. 

“It’s too hot for pedestrians to get out before 
sundown,” he said, wiping his wet face. “The 
tsetse flies kill off the horses that are brought in. 
As for automobiles, they don’t like the sand, and 



144 PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


Beira’s built on a stretch of sand, as you can 
plainly see.” 

The hotel was pleasant but it was not cool. 
Beyond it stretched a golf course. Peter wanted 
to try a game, but Uncle Lee said, “No. That 
course was built by an Englishman who died of 
sunstroke the first time he tried to play it.” 

Perhaps Uncle Lee was joking. Peter could not 
tell. 

“These Portuguese colonies are now called 
Mozambique, as you’ll notice by the latest maps,” 
Uncle Lee informed Peter and Nancy at dinner 
that evening. “Tomorrow we’ll take a five hun¬ 
dred mile boat trip to the town of Mozambique. 
I won’t risk your staying here. You might become 
sick.” 

The sea, by morning light, was running high. 
The boat on which the MacLarens planned to sail 
dared not run close to the dock. 

“Since the boat can’t come to us, we’ll go to the 
boat,” Uncle Lee announced, but he did not ex¬ 
plain how the feat would be accomplished. Surely 
not by rowboat or canoe! 

At the dock Peter and Nancy gave shouts of 
laughter as a big basket, looking very much like 
the laundry hamper at home, was lowered by a 
derrick. Close at hand they saw that it was 
as high as a room and opened on the side by 
means of a door. 

“Step in,” Uncle Lee invited and held the door 
open for Nancy. 




Acme 


A BIG BASKET LOOKING MUCH LIKE THE LAUNDRY 
HAMPER AT HOME, WAS LOWERED 




















146 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


There was just room enough inside for the 
three MacLarens. Nancy clung to Peter and 
Uncle Lee as some one fastened the door shut. 
The basket jerked, it lurched and swung. Nancy 
feared it would be doused in the stormy white- 
caps, but nothing of the sort happened. The bas¬ 
ket landed on a slippery deck, and the MacLarens 
walked gingerly to their staterooms guided by a 
steward in immaculate white. He himself was 
as black as any native on the streets of Beira. 

Mozambique, the old capital of Portuguese East 
Africa, was situated strangely enough, on a little 
island. Back and forth between the island and 
the mainland plied numerous canoes carrying 
food and other products to and from the town. 

On landing, the MacLarens observed that the 
entire island was covered with pastel-painted 
houses. After the poor little villages through 
which the train had passed on its way to Beira, 
even after Beira itself, this place was a paradise. 

Macadamized streets, paved sidewalks, painted 
houses, and even street lamps! And such small, 
charming houses, red and pink and blue and laven¬ 
der and yellow, like the variegated flowers in a 
garden. There were parks in the town, too; and 
when Peter and Nancy heard of an old fortress 
just out of the town, Uncle Lee said, “Go along 
while I talk to the Governor. Pll order each of 
you a machilla” 

“Pm sure Pll like it,” Nancy said soberly. “Pm 
quite thirsty.” 



THE PORTUGUESE COLONIES 


147 


“Fm sure I’ll like it,” echoed Peter. “I’m quite 
hungry.” 

Laughing, Uncle Lee bought his charges some 
oranges in a little market near by. Then he 
ordered a machilla for each of them. A machilla, 
they saw, was a reclining chair with a canvas top. 
It was fastened to a pole and carried by two 
natives. One walked in front, the other behind. 

Thus Peter and Nancy, swinging side by side, 
were carried down a long avenue of wild fig trees 
to the old fortress. 

“And where do we go from here?” Peter in¬ 
quired when he and Nancy met Uncle Lee later at 
an appointed corner. 

“We’re going back through the Mozambique 
channel to Lourengo Marques. It’s the present 
capital. We’ll have to double back past Chinde 
and Beira. What do you say?” 

“I’d love the boat trip,” Nancy agreed. 

“That isn’t such a long trip!” Peter gave an 
airy gesture. “I wouldn’t want to miss Delagoa 
Bay, one of the best harbors in the southern 
hemisphere. I didn’t study that bay in school for 
nothing. Remember, Nancy? Louren^o Marques 
is situated on Delagoa Bay. Remember?” 

“I don’t believe we got that far,” Nancy apolo¬ 
gized. 

However, after a time, Nancy finally did get 
that far. Delagoa Bay proved so large that it 
took several hours just to steam into the inner 
harbor from the Bay itself. There was no ques- 




Keystone View 

EUROPEANS IN WHITE COSTUMES, DARKER POR¬ 
TUGUESE, AND EAST INDIANS 













THE PORTUGUESE COLONIES 


149 


tion as to the importance of the businesslike city, 
for the harbor was full of ships. Uncle Lee said 
that in this harbor were handled gold from the 
Transvaal, farm products from the South African 
Union, and cattle and minerals from the Rho- 
desias. 

Passing Reuben Point into the inner harbor, 
Peter and Nancy beheld a customhouse pier much 
like that of European cities they had visited. As 
the MacLarens strolled through the streets, they 
felt gay and excited. Here were Europeans in 
white costumes, darker Portuguese, and East In¬ 
dians. Hats, caps, turbans! 

“How shall we ride?” Uncle Lee was like a 
young boy. “Jinrikishas? Taxicabs? Streetcars? 
Take your choice, young lady.” 

“Jinrikishas,” Nancy decided. “I want to go 
slowly so I won’t miss anything.” 

“Wise traveler!” exclaimed Uncle Lee, as he 
called a grinning black boy. 

Such a beautiful city! It lay along a beach of 
golden sand, and there were red cliffs for a back¬ 
ground. For their stay Uncle Lee chose one of 
the big resort hotels overlooking the ocean. Even 
the houses of the town looked as though they 
were in holiday mood, for they were painted in 
all the colors of the rainbow. 

Back in the hotel lounge, sipping their cool 
drinks, Peter and Nancy did not mind Uncle Lee s 
discussion with an Englishman about the govern¬ 
ment of Mozambique. Much they did not under- 





150 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


stand, but they did learn that Mozambique was 
governed mostly by companies who had charters 
from the Portuguese government. 

Peter and Nancy felt almost drowsy when all 
of a sudden they saw two strangely-dressed peo¬ 
ple pass the veranda. Wide-eyed the children 
looked after them. 

“Did you see what I saw?” Peter asked. 

The woman wore a strange costume, some sort 
of rough cloth about her body from waist to knees 
and another cloth tied at her shoulder. Neck¬ 
laces of beads, bracelets of beads, and anklets of 
copper wire that almost covered her legs were 
evidently not enough to appease her desire for 
jewelry. About her head she wore a beaded band 
and through her lower lip was a hole in which an 
ivory bone had been thrust. She walked proudly. 

The man slouched along, naked except for a 
string about his waist to which was tied a bunch 
of fur tails in front and behind. Uncle Lee came 
out on the veranda and told Peter and Nancy 
they had seen two natives from the Shire River 
district. 

“Well, tomorrow we’re flying into more Portu¬ 
guese territory—Angola,” said Uncle Lee. 

“Who’s going to fly us?” Peter inquired. 

“You’ll be surprised,” promised Uncle Lee. 



THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA 


P ETER and Nancy could scarcely believe their 
eyes. Coming up from the beach, his helmet 
pushed up from his sun-tanned boyish face, was 
Jimmy Dustin, the tall, blue-eyed aviator who had 
piloted them over so much of South America. 
They all saw one another at the same time. As 
Uncle Lee said afterward, “You couldn't hear 
yourself think." 

Dinner that night seemed like a feast as Jimmy 
talked of flying conditions in Africa. It was diffi¬ 
cult, he declared, because of the hot air currents. 
While it might be cool close to the ground, actual 
currents of scorching, muggy air swept above the 
plateaus and across the continent continually. 
Jimmy had just flown a party of American tour¬ 
ists over the Ituri Forest and had visited the very 
Pygmies that Peter and Nancy had so thoroughly 
enjoyed. 

“We liked the Pygmies a lot," Peter put in. 

“So did I," Jimmy agreed. “But tomorrow 
you'll meet with some samples of the Pygmy race 
that are not quite so attractive. Eat all your ice 
cream. You'll be on scant rations for the next 
few days. Through already? Then come out and 
see my ‘crate.' It doesn't look so impressive, but 
it'll land on solid ground or on water; and it's 
practically indestructible." 


151 


152 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Ewing Galloway 

WAVING GOOD-BY TO JIMMY’S PLANE 


Next morning the MacLarens were off in 
Jimmy's plane, headed toward Bechuanaland and 
planning to stop somewhere on the Kalahari Des¬ 
ert during the first lap of a long journey. It 
seemed almost cold as Peter and Nancy climbed 
into the cockpit behind Jimmy and Uncle Lee. 
Once in the air, however, the plane encountered 
streams of heat that seemed to rise out of a steam 
laundry. The view below, at first obscured by 
darkness and mist, became clearer. The Transvaal 
and Southern Rhodesia, while seemingly barren 
in places, boasted dark fringes of timber. 








THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA 


153 


On over Bechuanaland zoomed the plane; and 
now the earth below appeared dry, almost parched. 
Here and there cattle or sheep or goats munched 
on the sparse grass. The animals seemed healthy 
enough. Probably the grass was nutritious even 
if it was not plentiful. 

Some hours later Uncle Lee passed back some 
canned tomato juice and sandwiches to the pas¬ 
sengers. Along about sundown Jimmy brought the 
plane to a landing on the edge of the Kalahari 
Desert, near what looked like an oasis from the 
sky. It proved, however, to be a sluggish little 
river on whose banks grew the usual wiry wild 
grass of the country. 

“Some Bushmen live near here.” Jimmy peered 
into the distance. “They know me. We'll have a 
little parley with them and then fly on to Wind¬ 
hoek in Southwest Africa before going into 
Angola.” 

Uncle Lee would not permit Peter and Nancy 
to taste the sluggish water. Instead he treated 
them to a bottle of mineral water from the plane. 
They stood in the shadow of the wings and squinted 
across the sandy, rocky land before them. There 
was scarcely any vegetation except weeds along 
the river and one or two stunted baobab trees in 
the open. 

Suddenly Jimmy began jumping about, utter¬ 
ing a weird mixture of clucks and grunts, much 
like the expressive gobble, gobble of a turkey. 

In response to this strange call, several queer- 



154 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


looking little men came out from behind some 
rocks where they must have been hiding. They 
could not have been more than four feet tall and 
their yellow faces had rather flat, Oriental fea¬ 
tures. When Jimmy dangled some strings of 
bright-colored beads before them, they laughed like 
little children. Since they wore only a piece of 
cloth tied with a string, the beads naturally looked 
wonderful to them. 

“Bushmen, Peter!" Jimmy explained. “Come 
on, they'll show you where they live. Want to 
follow, Nancy?" 

“Wish I could speak that Bushman language," 
Peter cried. “That sounds even easier than 
Afrikaans." 

After a long hike across the hot sand, the little 
man in the lead pointed out a rude circle of rocks. 
Inside were several low huts made of reeds. The 
women and children immediately scurried to shel¬ 
ter, peeking out like scared wild animals at the 
visitors. The place was absolutely barren, and 
Nancy inquired, “What do they eat?" 

“They're not particular." Jimmy hesitated. 
“They do eat roots and wild fruits, in season, you 
might say; but they also exhibit a fondness for 
caterpillars, locusts, and grasshoppers. Ants are 
considered quite a delicacy." 

But Nancy had clapped her hands over her ears. 

The plane reached Windhoek late that evening. 
It was a small town with substantial public build¬ 
ings, mostly of German construction. 





THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA 


155 


Next morning Jimmy nosed the plane up over 
the hills into the desert country known as Damara- 
land. Here, Jimmy explained, the natives were 
not always so pleasant as they might be. Bantus 
and Hottentots, they were, jealously guarding 
their wild homes. 

The plane dipped a greeting over a section of 
Damaraland and roared on toward the province of 
Angola, which Peter and Nancy had been told had 
about a thousand-mile western coastline. 

Since it was an unhealthful land, Uncle Lee 
wanted to make the visit brief. Nancy felt sorry 
for the Portuguese. Even though their explorers 
had been the first in Africa, they had not been 
able to keep the lion's share. Nancy thought of 
Cam making his first discovery of the mouth of 
the Congo before Columbus sailed to America. She 
thought of Bartholomew Dias sailing to the south¬ 
ern end of Africa away back in 1487 and naming 
it the “Cape of Storms." And of course she 
thought of Vasco da Gama. Why, the Indian Ocean 
was once called the “Great Portuguese Lake." 

The coastal plain of Angola was green, anyway, 
and the mountains behind it were heavily wooded. 
Jimmy pointed and shouted that the river down 
below was the Kunene, part of the southern 
boundary of Angola. 

The plane soared out to sea and back again over 
the mountains and above the high plateaus. From 
a distance the region below looked like jungle 
country. Peter and Nancy could discern tall trees 






Acme 


ALONG THE COAST OF WEST AFRICA 



THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA 


15 7 


with interlacing vines and plains covered with tall 
grass, which they had learned to judge quite accu¬ 
rately. Jungle grass was often ten feet high. Peter 
pointed to the great oil palms and baobab trees 
down below. Once Jimmy swung so low that Nancy 
could see the lovely orchids hanging in the trees. 
Uncle Lee called the children’s attention to the 
rubber creeper plants from whose sap real rubber 
is made. He said that the yellow fruit, which 
looked like the orange, tasted more like the lemon. 

Once the smoke from a grass fire floated up to 
the plane, but the jungle itself seemed quiet and 
lifeless under the sun. Yet Peter and Nancy knew 
that in its depths dwelt lions and elephants and 
buffaloes and that in its rivers hippos wallowed. 

Two hundred miles further on, at Mossamedes 
in Southern Angola, Jimmy brought the plane to 
rest on the water not far from the wharf. Imme¬ 
diately Portuguese workers and natives came run¬ 
ning from every direction. They towed the plane 
to the landing with shouts of welcome for the 
travelers. 

Peter and Nancy immediately realized that they 
were in a cattle country. Even at the wharf stood 
a number of patient animals wearing well padded 
saddles from which hung stirrups. The guiding 
reins were fastened to round bars thrust through 
holes in the poor beasts’ noses. Uncle Lee said, 
“You two youngsters may take a ride on the cattle 
if you wish. Jimmy and I must see about refuel¬ 
ing our ship.” 




158 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Paul's Photos 


A COTTON CROP ON THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA 

The ride was really quite comfortable, but the 
weather was uncomfortably warm. 

When the children returned, Uncle Lee was 
waiting impatiently beside the plane which had 
been drawn up on the beach. 

“On to Luanda!” he cried as he helped Peter and 
Nancy into the cockpit. “It’s an historic old city. 
Once it was a famous slave market. Now it’s an 
exporting city, the finest on the West coast.” 

“We're traveling altogether too fast,” Nancy 
objected. “I'd like to stay right here and just rest.” 

But soon her interest was quickened by the sight 
of foreign steamers making for port. And that 
port, she was told, was Luanda. Jimmy circled 
the harbor before landing. 




THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA 


159 


There were stores along the bay and houses far¬ 
ther back. Only a few thousand Europeans lived in 
the town, Uncle Lee said, but there were many 
times that number of natives. In the country be¬ 
yond abounded coffee and sugar plantations. A 
railroad brought peanuts, ivory, cotton, oil, and 
hides into the city to be loaded upon the ships in 
the harbor. Peter and Nancy had seen one of 
those great crops. It had been harvested and piled 
in mound-like hills taller than a man. 

Quite as important as Luanda, Peter and Nancy 
learned, was Dondo on the Cuanza River. Even 
though their time was limited the MacLaren party 
flew a little inland and southeast to Dondo. 

They found it a very busy town indeed. Cara¬ 
vans crowded the streets. White men and natives 
alike thronged the shops. Porters, camels, and 
donkeys abounded at every turn. 

Flying over the harbor of Luanda on the return 
trip, Peter and Nancy peered down to see the tall 
masts of ships. Some of these ships were bound 
for Southampton and from thence to New York. 
Although neither one mentioned it to the other, 
both Peter and Nancy felt a fleeting twinge of 
homesickness. After all, Angola was a long way 
from the United States, and Minnesota. 





FROM SLAVE TRADE TO MODERN 
BUSINESS 


“ rpHE patchwork on the map!” Peter exclaimed. 

± After a long, interesting airplane flight up 
the coast of French Equatorial Africa, Jimmy Dus¬ 
tin had brought his plane to rest in a native settle¬ 
ment on one of the many sandy stretches in the 
delta of the Niger River. The MacLarens were 
busy consulting their maps, after a hasty meal 
supplied by the little group of natives that had 
gathered about the plane. 

“Anyway, we’re in the Gulf of Guinea,” Jimmy 
declared gaily. “The map may be a patchwork of 
countries just as you say, Peter, but geographi¬ 
cally it’s one land.” 

“What do you mean by that, Jimmy?” Nancy’s 
face, sun- and wind-burned, was bent over the 
maps. 

“You’ll notice when we rise again,” Jimmy ex¬ 
plained. “The Guineas are really part of the Afri¬ 
can Plateau cut off by the Niger. On the seaward 
side it’s rather steep. On the land side it slopes 
gently into the interior. Since it’s a good wet coun¬ 
try, the rains drain into the basin of the Niger.” 

“Which makes the Niger one grand river!” 
Peter added. “Even if it is pretty well divided 
here.” 

“Let me have a hand in this.” Uncle Lee 


160 


FROM SLAVE TRADE TO MODERN BUSINESS 


161 


stretched a long arm over Nancy's shoulder and 
his sharp pencil ran along the coast of the gulf on 
the map. “Here we are in Nigeria, a land of oil 
rivers, they are called, because so much palm oil 
is brought down to the ships at sea. Next we have 
Dahomey, once a great slave coast. Here's the Gold 
Coast next, with the Ashanti Gold Fields. Then 
follows the Ivory Coast, where you'll still see plenty 
of elephants. After that Liberia, the only republic 
in South Africa, and then Sierra Leone. Liberia 
and Sierra Leone were together once called The 
Grain Coast,' because they were famous for spicy 
seeds known as ‘Grains of Paradise.' Of course, 
there's Portuguese Guinea, and finally Gambia and 
Senegal—which spell peanuts—but we haven't 
time for all." 

“Which countries belong to whom?" Peter in¬ 
quired. “The only one I'm sure of is Liberia. 
That's a republic." 

“There's one little Portuguese colony," Nancy 
added. “That's easy to remember." 

“And everything else is French," Uncle Lee con¬ 
cluded, “except Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ashanti and 
Nigeria, which are British." 

“That's plenty," Jimmy declared. “It's certainly 
hot down here on the sand. It may be hot up there, 
too, but we'd best get going." 

The MacLarens settled again into the cockpit. 
Peter and Nancy were surprised at the number of 
ships steaming toward ports on the West Coast. 
At each landing there were literally hundreds of 



162 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


black men to welcome the sailors. Both Peter and 
Nancy remembered vividly what Uncle Lee had 
told them the evening before. In the early days 
when the first brave sailors made their way along 
the West Coast they were forced to indulge in 
“silent trading.” The natives, frightened and like¬ 
wise suspicious of the white men, were nevertheless 
anxious to exchange their gold or ivory for the 
cloth, the knives, and the trinkets that the 
strangers carried. The traders would lay their 
goods out on one of the sandy beaches, then retire 
to their ships. The natives would lay their gold 
beside the goods and return to the forests. If the 
gold left was enough to pay for the goods, it was 
taken. If it was not enough, it was left beside the 
goods. Now if the natives were willing to pay 
more, they added more gold. If both sides were 
now satisfied, the traders took the gold, the natives 
took the goods, and all was well. Perhaps on that 
very beach below, such trades had been made. 

Jimmy had swung back and up over Nigeria. 
Peter and Nancy now saw plainly that the great 
river, the Niger, divided into innumerable little 
streams at sea level. Farther back it rushed 
through rocky channels in the hills. Far inland it 
curved through open plains like a great silver rib¬ 
bon. Once, as Jimmy swung low, Peter and Nancy 
caught a glimpse of a group of almost naked black 
men rolling barrels along a trail toward town. 
Uncle Lee said the barrels contained palm oil. 

Flying back over the coast Jimmy pointed out 








Underwood & Underwood 


NATIVES OF DAHOMEY ON THE WEST COAST 






164 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


the swamps and the mangroves as well as the 
gloomy forests of palms. Once Nancy pointed at 
some bright red flowering trees and Uncle Lee said 
they were cotton trees. 

Along the coast of Dahomey Jimmy yelled, “Re¬ 
member the Amazons!” Here it was that some 
Negro women known as the Amazon Army, held 
a black king's enemies at bay for a long time. It 
is still very much a black man's country, to judge 
by the population which Peter and Nancy saw. 
Jimmie managed a landing so Uncle Lee might 
snap a picture of some typical natives of Dahomey. 

The plane sped along the Gold Coast where the 
great castle fortresses had been built. At Elmina 
the great stone steps of the landing and the walls 
of three forts, situated on separate hills, made the 
town seem warlike. Nancy regretted that Jimmy 
could not stop at Accra, the official capital of the 
Gold Coast colony, where lived the Ga people, 
Negroes speaking a certain type of language. 
Peter wanted to see the mahogany logs in the Tana 
River, but they had no time. 

The Ivory Coast, With its heavily wooded forests 
on the mountains, seemed true elephant country. 
The land was rich, fertile and famous for its good 
rainfall. Peter and Nancy were not surprised to 
see giant mahogany trees and in the clearings, 
cacao farms. Along the coast were palm groves 
which would yield nuts and oil to be shipped to 
Bingerville, a city of the Ivory Coast Colony. In 
the mountains were veins of yellow gold. At sev- 



FROM SLAVE TRADE TO MODERN BUSINESS 


165 



Ewing Galloway 

SURF BOATS TRANSPORTING GOODS 

eral ports the children gazed on surf boats trans¬ 
porting cocoa and other goods to a steamer. 

“Liberia!” Jimmy announced it with a shout. 

Liberia, the MacLarens knew, was sometimes 
called “the Garden Spot of West Africa,” because, 
with its abundant rainfall and its fertile soil, it 
could produce such a variety of products, every¬ 
thing from palm oil, coffee and rubber to cocoa, 
ginger and manioc. The soil was suited to cotton, 
and Nancy had already seen some of the beautiful 
strong cloth that had been woven by the natives. 
Rice and sugar were easily grown here, too, and 
cattle, sheep and goats thrived on the rich grass. 

Uncle Lee insisted that Liberian coffee was the 
best he had ever drunk. Peter was most interested 
in the minerals, copper, zinc, gold, and iron—mica, 








166 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


too. And there were, he knew, small brilliant dia¬ 
monds yet to be mined. A country almost devoid 
of mosquitoes and malaria, it was more healthful 
than any of its neighbors. 

Jimmy flew as slowly as he dared over the coun¬ 
try that had been settled originally by freed Amer¬ 
ican Negroes. Those brave blacks suffered fever, 
foes and famine for a time, but they founded a re¬ 
public much like ours. 

Deep in thought, Peter and Nancy almost dozed. 
Suddenly Peter shouted, “Look at that mountain, 
Nancy! It looks exactly like a great big lion!” 

“Sierra Leone !” Nancy shouted. “We're going 
to land at last. That must be Freetown down be¬ 
low." 

It was almost sunset when Jimmy brought his 
plane into the wharf. There was a cheerful crowd 
of black men to anchor the plane. Peter remem¬ 
bered that Sierra Leone had once been called the 
white man's grave; but the officials who welcomed 
them looked very healthy. Uncle Lee remarked 
on the good water supply. 

Freetown, the children noticed, was set at the 
foot of surrounding hills on the summits of which 
were barracks. Two beautiful mountains that rose 
in the rear were called, so Jimmy said, Leicester 
Peak and Sugar Loaf. In the light of the setting 
sun the visitors recognized palms, cotton trees, and 
the ever-familiar baobabs. On the shore of the 
peninsula a lighthouse sent out its cheering beams. 

The MacLarens climbed wearily up to the main 





FROM SLAVE TRADE TO MODERN BUSINESS 


167 



Acme 

A NATIVE VILLAGE NEAR FREETOWN 

streets. These streets were wide and boasted any 
number of three- and four-story red-and-white 
stone buildings. An English-speaking guide ran 
up to explain that the municipal buildings were not 
far distant and that there was now a splendid hos¬ 
pital in Freetown. The cathedral was worth see¬ 
ing, and had the visitors seen Victoria Park? 
Uncle Lee handed the bally-hoo man a card, which 
resulted in further effusions. Slightly beyond the 
barracks Mr. MacLaren would find Hill Station. 
The Governor and officials lived at Hill Station. 

That night the entire MacLaren party dined in 
the home of an American friend of Uncle Lee’s and 







168 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


slept in clean white beds. They proceeded to Gam¬ 
bia the next day. 

“The chief crop of this section is the peanut,” 
Uncle Lee told his charges. “The trade in peanuts 
runs into millions of dollars every year. Much of 
the crop goes to the United States and England.” 

“Bathurst is the capital of Gambia and its chief 
port,” Nancy recited. 

“That’s because it’s on the great Gambia River,” 
Peter supplied. “The early explorers thought it the 
largest river in Africa, it’s so wide and deep at its 
mouth. The town was founded by the British in 
1814.” 

Bathurst appealed to Peter because of its pine¬ 
apples. Late that afternoon as he sat with the 
owner of an estate on the veranda he exclaimed, 
“It’s the first time I ever ate a whole pineapple at 
one sitting.” 

The servant had pulled out the cluster of the 
stem leaves and had handed Peter a spoon with 
which to scoop out the juicy yellow pulp. 

Nancy, as delighted as Peter, promised always 
to remember Bathurst when they had pineapple 
at home. Finally Uncle Lee persuaded the children 
to leave their fruit. 

The next stop made by Jimmy and the Mac- 
Larens was Senegal. Its capital, St. Louis, at the 
mouth of the Senegal River, was alive with ships 
in the harbor and caravans in the town. Uncle Lee 
explained that Senegal, owned by the French, com¬ 
pletely surrounded the British colony of Gambia, 




FROM SLAVE TRADE TO MODERN BUSINESS 


169 



THE MUNICIPAL MARKET IN A WEST AFRICAN TOWN 

and both were famous for peanuts and hides. 

The MacLarens landed, but Jimmy flew on 
west, leaving behind him a promise later on to 
show Peter and Nancy some of Africa's great 
mountains. 

Nancy clung to Uncle Lee's hand in the milling 
crowds of natives and their caravans. 

“Where are we bound for?" she asked. 
“Timbuktu!" Uncle Lee shouted above the noise. 
“Does that mean just no place in general ?" 
Nancy asked. 

“We used to say we were going to Timbuktu 
when we meant we were going to the farthest 
place we could imagine," Peter confessed. 

“This will be the real thing," Uncle Lee said 








TIMBUKTU! 


T HE MacLarens were so weary that the sight of 
Timbuktu in a sea of light upon the desert 
sands seemed like a mirage or a miracle, they knew 
not which. A railway journey, a boat trip, and 
then this last part of the journey by caravan, had 
brought them to one of the most famous and his¬ 
toric cities in Northwestern Africa. For two thou¬ 
sand years this place had been the site of a market 
town, Uncle Lee explained. This was because of 
its position near the bend of the Niger, its most 
northerly point. From this place the countries on 
the Mediterranean were a shorter distance. In 
the eleventh century the Tuareg, an important 
people of the West Central Sahara, made a set¬ 
tlement at this site. Since then it has been called 
Timbuktu. Once one of the great cities of Africa, 
much of it lay now in ruins. A few thousand still 
lived in its clay brick houses. The reason of its 
lessening importance was the fact that goods could 
now be sent in less time and at less cost by way 
of Senegal and the colonies on the Gulf of Guinea. 

The camels on which the children rode crowded 
into the alleys made by the houses and the low, 
adjoining walls. Everything seemed to be built 
of smooth earth. The walls and the houses alike 
were the color of putty, some with a touch of red 
in them, some with a touch of yellow, but all very 
much alike. 


170 


TIMBUKTU! 


171 


The roofs were flat and the parapets square. 
A round dome rose here and there. Very few of 
the houses had two stories. In the walls Peter and 
Nancy could see tiny windows which appeared to 
have no glass. Instead of glass there were wooden 
screens carved in Moorish style. The doors were 
flush with the walls along the alleys. 

As Uncle Lee helped Nancy down, she tried to 
crowd past the big camel on which she had ridden 
none too comfortably. She was in very close quar¬ 
ters. Peter boasted that he had become used to the 
queer lurch of his beast, but he walked as though 
he were cramped. 

“This is the strangest city of all,” he declared. 
“No carriages, no carts, no automobiles, no roads, 
no sidewalks, no crowds!” 

“There are crowds in the market place.” Uncle 
Lee was busy attending to the luggage. “Fve a 
surprise for you. Our neighbor, Bob Ludwig, who 
went abroad to study, is right here in Timbuktu. 
Jimmy got in touch with him and asked him to 
have a house ready for us. Well be staying here a 
while. I can’t let you youngsters wear yourselves 
out.” 

“We’re going to live in Timbuktu!” Nancy 
shouted. “0 Peter! We’re not just going to visit 
Timbuktu; we’re going to live here!” 

The sunshine was yellow and live. The air was 
clear and light. The city had a clean, wind-swept, 
sun-dried smell about it. There were no sounds of 
feet or wheels. In the sandy alleys the hoofs of 





172 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Ewing Galloway 

A CROWD IN THE MARKET PLACE IN TIMBUKTU 

donkeys or the padded feet of camels made no 
noise as they passed. 

Uncle Lee led the way to the market place, an 
open square where turbaned merchants squatted on 
mats selling their wares. Peter and Nancy glanced 
briefly at the rice and yams, the peanuts and the 
green stuff. Then they saw Bob Ludwig striding 
toward them, his long legs making extraordinary 
speed. His straw hat was pushed back from his 
face, which was so tanned it made his gray-blue 
eyes look light. He shook hands with Uncle Lee 
and Peter, his very sunny smile lighting up his 







TIMBUKTU! 


173 


merry face. He picked up Nancy and swung her 
about. Then he set her down and, taking her hand, 
started off with such long steps that she had to run 
to keep beside him. He chatted all the way. 

Suddenly he halted and pushed in a big, heavy 
door studded with copper nails. It creaked loudly. 
Bob stepped aside to allow Nancy to enter. She 
stepped from the sand of the alley over the thresh¬ 
old to the earthen floor of the small vestibule. 

“Go on in,” he called and followed with Peter 
and Uncle Lee. 

Nancy found herself in a big, cool, almost bare 
room with just a table and chairs in the middle. 

“Had quite a time getting the furniture.” Bob 
looked proud. “There are mats and blankets in the 
next room for us three men to sleep on. See that 
narrow iron stairway, Nancy? There's a room for 
you up there. I swept it out, but I couldn't do much 
sweeping or there wouldn't be any floor left.” 

“You're joking!” Nancy accused. “But the house 
does look as though it were made of sand.” 

She glanced up at a broken place in the corner of 
the ceiling. Uncle Lee pointed out the closely laid 
palm logs and the matting which formed a base for 
the earthen cement. There were only holes for 
windows in Bob's house. It did not boast any grills 
or shutters. 

“It’s the best I could do.” Bob looked proud 
rather than apologetic. “Feel like a millionaire in¬ 
stead of a poor student. Got a servant and every¬ 
thing. Here, Omar!” 





174 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


A grinning black boy came in out of the kitchen. 
Proudly he showed Nancy to her bare room with 
its coarse, hand-woven mat to sleep on, its vessel 
of water, and its crude cupboard, that looked as 
though it might have been made out of a packing 
box. Nancy ran to the little window. There was 
no real vista, only a view of unending sand. Yet 
somehow it had an appealing charm. 

The windows all faced the north. The doors 
were on the sunny street. Later, from that little 
window, Nancy was to see the big, golden stars in 
the sky and caravans approaching across the sandy 
wastes. In the heat of the day those blankets be¬ 
side her mat looked useless, but she was to learn 
that it grew surprisingly cold in the night, so cold, 
in fact, that the sun was most welcome when it 
rose. She had learned that rocks and sand give off 
heat very rapidly by reflection when the sun is 
shining. When the sun sets, they cool rapidly. 
Thus desert nights are always cold. During the 
hot hours of midday she could always enjoy a 
siesta or a little nap. 

Peter, at the foot of the stairs, called, “Dinner, 
Nancy! And will you be surprised!” 

The dinner was, as Peter's joyful voice had 
promised, remarkable. Omar had stuffed tomatoes 
with ground meat. The goat's milk, boiled and 
strained, tasted very good. The butter, of course, 
was liquid; but there were green onions and water¬ 
cress, as well as other salad materials. The egg 
plant had been cooked in oil and for dessert there 




TIMBUKTU! 


175 


were actually small watermelons, sweet and re¬ 
freshing. 

“Never expected anything like this in the desert, 
did you, Nancy?” Peter inquired, and asked 
quickly, “Where did you get them, Bob?” 

‘Til show you in the morning,” Bob promised. 

Many things happened that next morning. The 
man with goatskin bags brought water. His neck 
was very thick and strong from constantly carry¬ 
ing heavy loads. Next, a little old woman arrived 
with a bag of charcoal for the fire. She puffed at 
a pipe, jangled her bracelets, and chucked Nancy 
under the chin with a merry squeal. A shepherd 
brought fresh camel's milk. The shepherd wore a 
mantle and looked like a Biblical picture. A mer¬ 
chant came, the lower part of his face veiled. 

One thing puzzled Nancy. There seemed to be 
no drainage system. She had seen Omar throw the 
slops on the ground near a wall, where they drained 
off into the street. A little later when she went out 
into the courtyard, there wasn't a sign of anything. 
Nor were there ever any smells. She learned that 
the sun, the wind, and the sand kept Timbuktu 
clean. 

The trip to the gardens was a delight. These 
little plots, with their borders of beaten earth, were 
as carefully tended as the hotbeds at home. Gar¬ 
deners kept them carefully watered and showed 
great pride in the tender green beans, the crisp 
little carrots, and the bright red tomatoes. All 
these gardens had been planted on the banks of a 



176 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


pool which was formed, Uncle Lee declared, by 
water backed up from the Niger through an an¬ 
cient canal. It was a large pool, and, though peo¬ 
ple bathed, washed their clothes and watered their 
thirsty camels in it, it seemed never to be crowded. 

Peter and Nancy came often. Once they saw a 
caravan with bales of grass brought from a distant 
meadow. Again they saw some natives building a 
little charcoal fire to make their tea. And often 
they saw majestic caravans belonging to rich mer¬ 
chants who wore red fezzes and fine robes. 

The black people seemed always to be bathing 
themselves or washing their clothes. They were 
always merry and gay, and soon Peter and Nancy 
grew to feel at home in Timbuktu. The men laden 
with goat-skin bags became as familiar as the 
grocery boys back home. From sunrise to sunset 
they trotted along the alleys, bringing in water 
from the wells west of the city. 

Omar did all the shopping. Every morning he 
went to market, returning with eggs, butter, and 
fresh vegetables. Bob trusted him implicitly. 

Peter wanted to help, but Bob said it was not 
etiquette for a white boy to carry bundles. Nancy 
offered to sweep, but Bob said white girls didn’t 
sweep. Besides, he did not want his rented floor to 
disappear beneath Nancy’s broom. 

Altogether the life in Timbuktu was a gay, 
healthy, happy interlude in the strenuous African 
trip. The farthest place would always be one of the 
closest in the hearts of the MacLarens. 



BLACK IVORY AND STRANGE GIANTS 


W EEKS had passed since Peter and Nancy 
had heard the turtledoves of Timbuktu. 
During these strenuous weeks they had been 
traveling across deserts and along crocodile-in¬ 
fested rivers. Now they were crossing the Shari 
on a ferry. It was manned by black natives who 
spoke Arabic. The journey to the village of Kiya 
Be was to be made in a truck. 

The journey across the hot desert seemed end¬ 
less. But at last the village of Kiya Be came in 
sight. 

A chief came to speak to Uncle Lee through an 
interpreter. Behind him the MacLarens saw what 
they had come to see—the disk women of the 
Sara Kyabe tribe. 

While Peter and Nancy gasped in astonishment 
the women came out into the open. From the side 
their mouths looked like huge duck bills. From 
the front the children could see that each lip was 
distended with disks. The upper lip was large, to 
be sure; but in many cases the lower lip was as 
large as a saucer. It was not a pretty sight, for 
the women walked stooped, and they slobbered 
when they talked or tried to eat. 

“Why did they do it?” Peter inquired, while 
Nancy was silent for very pity. 

“You’d be surprised,” Uncle Lee answered, fan- 


177 


178 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


ning himself with his hat as he drew Nancy into 
the shade. “It was because they were too beauti- 
ful.” 

“Too beautiful!” Peter shouted incredulously. 

“Yes,” Uncle Lee insisted. “In the days of 
slavery the Arabs used to attack the Sara Kyabe 
tribes and steal their women because they 
brought such a big price in the slave markets. 
They even stole little girls like Nancy and brought 
them up in Arab homes until they were old 
enough to sell. So desperate did the tribesmen 
become that they decided to disfigure their women 
by enlarging their lips with disks. Of course they 
start in childhood by inserting small disks in the 
lips and adding larger disks as the skin stretches/’ 

“There’s no reason for doing it now,” Peter 
stoutly maintained. “Why does it go on?” 

“Custom.” Uncle Lee shrugged his shoulders. 
“Style, maybe. Whatever you choose to call it. 
Those strange blistered cuts are part of a re¬ 
ligious rite, devil worship; but the distended lips 
are merely the fashion. The government has long 
been trying to put a stop to the practice. These 
natives resist and resent any interference. Their 
worry over black ivory is no longer serious, but 
they stick to custom.” 

“What’s black ivory?” Nancy asked. “The only 
ivory I’ve ever seen was white, or maybe yellow¬ 
ish.” 

“Black ivory is a term often used for valuable 
black slaves,” Uncle Lee explained. “It was a case 







TJnderwoocl & Underwood 

TRUCK CROSSING THE SHARI RIVER, WITH THE 
HELP OF MANY NATIVES 





Paul's Photos 


A DISK WOMAN OF THE SARA KYABE TRIBE 





BLACK IVORY AND STRANGE GIANTS 


181 


where black lives became as valuable as white 
ivory.” 

The chief again appeared and invited the Mac- 
Larens to dine with him. He gave them a good 
dinner of chicken and rice and fruits, but they 
could not forget even for a moment the distorted, 
savage faces of the women. When one removed 
her disks to show Nancy, she was even more ugly, 
for the skin of her lips hung in soiled-looking 
folds. The Wasara giants, however, seemed to 
admire the strange fashion. 

The MacLarens departed in the truck, waving 
back at a group of tiny black children. 

North and east swung the truck to a place where 
the party joined a caravan guided by a sheik. He 
found his way by watching the stars at night, 
and by landmarks he was familiar with in the 
daytime. Uncle Lee explained that it was better 
to go with the caravan for many reasons. There 
was the danger of strangers losing their way in 
the desert, and bandits that would hesitate to 
attack a caravan might waylay a small party. It 
was a desperately hard trek over sandy wastes. 
At night they camped in the desert, but daylight 
saw them again on their journey. 

As they neared Kuka on Lake Chad they were 
one of the many caravans moving toward the 
great trade center. At the gate the MacLarens 
stood waiting while a long procession of camels 
passed. These camels were purposely hitched to¬ 
gether, the tail of each camel being tied by a 




182 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


string to the nose of the camel behind it. In this 
way each camel was compelled to travel at the 
same rate of speed, and all danger of straying 
off the trail was avoided. Once inside the gates 
Uncle Lee boosted Nancy up on a camel belong¬ 
ing to a merchant who had agreed to take the 
truck off Uncle Lee’s hands and return it to 
Timbuktu. 

“A town of at least 50,000,” Uncle Lee declared. 
“As you see, Nancy, most of the people live in 
thatched huts. The one- and two-story buildings 
are few.” 

Uncle Lee secured camels for Peter and him¬ 
self, and the three MacLarens rode on a tour of 
investigation about the city. They perceived that 
it was divided into two sections, each part being 
surrounded by a white clay wall. 

“I suppose it’s something like the British towns 
in Rhodesia,” Peter guessed, “the white people 
inside the walls after sundown, the black out¬ 
side.” 

“Not quite,” Uncle Lee explained. “Nearly all 
the people here are black. The nobles and the 
people of the upper class live inside one wall; the 
merchants and the common people live in the 
other.” 

“And in between,” cried Peter, “are the mar¬ 
kets where both classes meet and where all their 
animals meander. At least it looks that way. 
Notice the soldiers, some with guns and some with 
spears and some with swords? Take your choice 




BLACK IVORY AND STRANGE GIANTS 


183 


of weapons, Uncle Lee. What kind of a place is 
this, anyway?” 

“We’re in Nigeria,” you know,” Uncle Lee de¬ 
clared, “but we’re also in Bornu. The Sheik of 
Bornu is a powerful person, for all he chances to 
be a British subject. What’s the matter, Nancy?” 

Nancy drooped with weariness and soon Uncle 
Lee had settled her comfortably in the home of 
an English family to whom he had a letter of 
introduction. 

On the following morning, while enjoying their 
tea, muffins, and orange marmalade, Peter and 
Nancy learned much of the strange, mixed crowd 
in Kuka. For one thing, they were a mixture 
for the most part of Negroes and Berbers, a name 
applied to the natives who lived around Car¬ 
thage. These people, the host said, are tireless 
traders. They buy feathers and ivory, which they 
exchange for European goods. Then they take 
these goods south to trade them in turn for native 
products like palm kernels, hides, raw cotton, and 
tin ore. 

“Where does the tin ore come from?” Peter 
inquired. 

“Northern Nigeria,” the English host replied. 
“You would be amazed at the huge deposits. Na¬ 
tives have worked over them for generations. 
Many of the natives hereabouts are farmers. 
Your uncle will show you the bananas and the 
grapes.” 

It was on horseback that the MacLarens visited 



184 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


Lake Chad. Here along the swampy shore they 
saw more hippos than they had ever imagined 
existed. 

“Here we see large animals in one of the large 
lakes of the world!” Nancy, much refreshed, could 
smile again. 

“Funny this water isn’t salty, like our Salt Lake 
at home,” Peter puzzled. “They say it has no 
outlet. It’s as big as Lake Huron in the rainy 
season.” 

“You’re right, Peter,” Uncle Lee agreed. “Lake 
Chad has no outlet. The only plausible reason why 
it isn’t salty is because there’s no salt in the soil 
about it.” 

“Pm glad for the sake of the natives that it is 
fresh,” Nancy declared. “A fresh-water lake in 
desert country! What could be better?” 



SHELLS FOR MONEY 


T HE procession moved onward into the high 
country of Hausaland. It was the strangest 
parade in which Peter and Nancy had ever rid¬ 
den. It consisted of Arabian camels or drome¬ 
daries, with their single humps heavily laden, of 
donkeys wearing heavy packs, and of Negroes 
carrying bales of cotton on their heads. Uncle 
Lee, Peter, and Nancy brought up the rear on 
horseback, their own porters following on foot. 

Peter and Nancy were mounted on slim brown 
mares, whose noses were so black and silky that 
they were like poppy petals. “We’re fortunate,” 
Uncle Lee said as he rode up to join them, “in 
being able to make the trip with a trader’s cara¬ 
van. We’ll be perfectly safe and we’ll see the 
country much better than we should otherwise.” 

“Why do we need all those porters?” Nancy 
inquired, glancing back at the half-dozen blacks. 
“Peter and I haven’t much of a wardrobe.” 

“They’re carrying our money,” Uncle Lee 
explained. 

“Uncle Lee, did you discover a gold mine when 
we weren’t looking?” Peter asked. 

For answer Uncle Lee called one of the black 
porters to him and ordered him to set down his 
bundle and to open it. Standing up in their stir¬ 
rups the children leaned over to look at a col¬ 
lection of shells no bigger than lima beans. 


185 


186 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


“Cowrie shells/' Uncle Lee explained, “from 
the Indian Ocean. Shells are money in many 
villages through which we'll pass. Some of our 
porters are carrying cloth and one has bars of 
salt. One means of exchange that a caravan used 
to take with it was in the form of slaves. You 
notice that there aren't any slaves in this caravan. 
Slavery was done away with here in Nigeria in 
1917." 

“About how much is a cowrie shell worth?" 
Peter inquired. 

“Forty of them are worth about a cent." Uncle 
Lee grinned. “Even if your pockets were stuffed 
full of this kind of money, you couldn't buy much, 
Peter." 

“Isn't there any silver or gold money?" Nancy 
inquired, as the porter again put his bag of shells 
on his head. 

The horses cantered to catch up with the party. 

“Yes," Uncle Lee answered. “The British in¬ 
troduced silver coinage in the land of the Hausas 
in 1913, but it isn't in use everywhere. By the 
way, the British government has been both wise 
and kind. While it still insists that the land and 
products belong to Britain, it protects and helps 
the natives." 

At evening the traders made camp. A fire was 
kept going and porters were stationed around to 
keep off the lions and leopards that inhabited the 
region. Peter and Nancy were now grateful for 
the woolen clothes that Uncle Lee had insisted 





SHELLS FOR MONEY 


187 


they bring with them. It grew so cold in the 
night that the water froze in open basins. 

The next morning the entire party moved 
through heavily wooded country. The natives, 
Peter and Nancy saw, were tall, straight, and 
rather handsome. Their lips were not so thick 
as those of Negroes and they wore garments of 
dark blue or scarlet cotton cloth. During the day¬ 
time birds of brilliant plumage and butterflies with 
beautiful markings flew across the trails. The chil¬ 
dren noticed one very peculiar thing about the 
forest. There was scarcely a dead branch on the 
ground. They soon learned why. 

“The answer,” Peter observed tersely, “is ants! 
Big ants, little ants, medium-sized ants, white 
ants and black ants, warrior or driver ants, but 
ants, nevertheless. If you pick up what you think 
is a stick, it falls to pieces in your hands. The 
ants have eaten out the inside.” 

Ant hills appeared only too frequently. They 
were hillocks, thirty to forty feet thick and ten to 
fifteen feet high. Uncle Lee took time to compare 
one of these giant ant hills to a community house 
with its different rooms and tunnels and its di¬ 
vided labor. The queen ant, who laid the eggs, 
governed all the others. These servants carried 
the eggs into nurseries where they cared for them 
and for the young. Even though these white ants 
got into the luggage and ate Peter’s lead pencils 
and the corks in Uncle Lee’s antiseptics, the Mac- 
Larens did not complain. They had not encoun- 



188 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


tered any of the terrible warrior ants whose 
sting, they had heard, was like a red-hot needle. 
Warrior ants, they knew, put fear into even such 
brave animals as lions and elephants. 

Once there was a great deal of shouting ahead. 
Peter galloped up to see what was the matter. 
He came back looking rather white. 

“There was a strip of black across the trail,” 
he explained, breathing hard. “It was made up of 
driver ants. The natives were scared stiff. They 
said that any living thing that attempted to cross 
the path of a colony of driver ants was sure to be 
attacked and eaten. The only recourse would be 
to dive into water. So the caravan has turned 
aside onto another trail. There are snakes in this 
part of the country, too—puff adders. They’re 
very poisonous.” 

“My, Peter, but you’re a cheerful person!” 
Nancy scolded. “Please look at the pleasant side 
of this country. We’re coming to a beautiful field 
of wheat, and right through those trees you can 
see a big plot of maize. Look, Peter! See that 
cunning baby tied to his mother’s back while she 
works. We must be near a village.” 

“We surely are,” Peter agreed. “Hear the 
drums!” 

The MacLarens had become used to the peculiar 
beating of drums which always notified the village 
ahead of their approach. Uncle Lee called the 
sending of these messages by drums the “Drum 
Telegraph.” 



SHELLS FOR MONEY 


189 



Underwood cC- Underwood 


THIS ORIGINAL BLUES SINGER IS ONE OF THE 
PEOPLE OF HAUSALAND 

After the shadow cast over the entire caravan 
by meeting the driver ants, the village looked 
particularly hospitable. True the walls had been 
made of mud and the houses within the walls also; 
but here was safety and food and good water. 

After the evening meal the party was enter¬ 
tained by the original Blues Singer as Uncle Lee 
called him. Weird and wailing music he made with 
his strange instrument and his voice. 

That night Nancy slept in a bed made of dried 
mud. There was a hollow place beneath the bed 
in which a shy black girl built a little fire. After 
it had died down, Nancy found the bed warm 








190 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


and comfortable. For the first time in several 
nights she slept without being chilled. Peter and 
Uncle Lee boasted that they had slept on beds 
partly woven of reeds, but, as Peter said, the 
reeds wouldn’t have lasted long if the ants had 
entered. 

Nancy sat beside her uncle in the sun, a piece 
of stewed chicken in one hand, a large slice of 
sweet potato that had been fried in palm oil in 
the other. 

“How does it happen, Uncle Lee,” she whis¬ 
pered, “that the Hausa people are so much hand¬ 
somer than many of the other natives? They are 
always straight and strong, and their lips are 
not thick.” 

“If you’d carry things on your head, you’d be 
straight and strong, too,” Peter observed as he 
gnawed on a great ear of corn. “The Hausas in¬ 
herit their fine features and thin lips from the 
... from the . ..” 

“Hamites or Dark Caucasians,” Uncle Lee sup¬ 
plied. “The Hausas are partly Negro and partly 
Hamite. These Hamites are often darker in color¬ 
ing than the Semites. Many of them have frizzed 
hair and full beards. Other natives call them 
‘fuzzy wuzzies.’ But the face of the Hamite, un¬ 
like that of the Negro, is long. Tomorrow we’ll 
reach Kano and you’ll see what these people have 
accomplished. Kano is perhaps the largest city in 
Central Africa.” 

“How large?” Peter inquired, picking up a little 





SHELLS FOR MONEY 


191 


cake and tasting it. He coughed violently, for it 
was seasoned with red pepper. 

“Something like 89,000,” Uncle Lee replied, 
striving to hide a smile. “It's connected by rail¬ 
way with the Gulf of Guinea. You’ll find Kano 
picturesque all right. It’s a walled city with 
gates, thirteen of them. There’s also a water 
gate to let out the floods.” 

“Are you joking, Uncle Lee?” Nancy de¬ 
manded ; but Uncle Lee shook his head. 

The following morning was foggy and cold; 
but when the sun rose, the land was full of sing¬ 
ing birds and exquisite butterflies. In little 
swampy places rice was being cultivated and in 
gardens on higher land peas and beans and sweet 
potatoes grew abundantly. Oranges hung green 
or golden on trees close to the trail. 

Soon the city of Kano came in sight. Such big, 
thick walls! Uncle Lee said they were forty feet 
thick and fifteen miles in circumference. There 
were many gardens outside the walls, and, as the 
caravan passed inside, Peter and Nancy ex¬ 
claimed at the loveliness of them. The dwellings 
were nearly all one-storied mud huts. Strangely 
enough there was a pond in the middle of the city 
that divided it into two parts. On one side of 
the pond lived the prosperous people, on the other 
side the poorer class. 

“I can imagine, Uncle Lee,” Nancy admitted, 
“that during the rainy season Kano would need 
that water gate you spoke of.” 




192 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Publishers’ Photo Service 


MEDICINE MEN IN ELABORATE COSTUMES, PER¬ 
FORMING STRANGE DANCES 

“Where are the factories?’’ Peter inquired. “I 
thought the Hausas wove cloth and made hats* 
and leather goods.” 

“The factories,” Uncle Lee explained, “are 
mostly in the homes. After I see to our luggage 
and living quarters, we’re going to visit the larg¬ 
est market in Africa. You’ll see 30,000 people 
buying and selling at the same time!” 

And it was so. Such strange crowds! There 
were fair-skinned men of the desert with veils 
over their faces. There were Arabs in long gowns 
with turbans. There were medicine men in elab¬ 
orate costumes performing strange dances. They 








SHELLS FOR MONEY 


193 


grinned at Peter and Nancy as they went through 
their performance. There were Negroes wearing 
scarcely anything at all. And there were the 
Hausa merchants themselves in costumes of red 
and blue cloth. 

As for the produce, it was spread over many 
squares. Each separate set of stalls or open 
space was given to one commodity. One section 
sold nothing but fuel. The wood was tied neatly 
in bundles. A second section sold cloth, some 
native dyed cloth and some shipped from Europe 
and brought in by way of Guinea. In another 
section there were beautiful leather products, 
everything from Morocco boots turned up at the 
toes to leather pillows. 

Peter and Nancy could not be coaxed to leave. 
They visited the pottery merchants, the grain mer¬ 
chants, and the merchants who sold fowls and 
goats and cattle. But like all children they found 
at last the sweetmeat merchant and lingered to 
enjoy a confection made of honey and nuts fried in 
oil. They saw natives chewing kola nuts that 
stained their teeth red, but the children nibbled 
contentedly on what they had. 

“We’ll never forget this candy store,” Peter 
declared. 

Nancy looked at the smiling black man, the 
bright-eyed black children pressing close, and at 
the mud houses out near the pond and said, 
“You’re right, Peter. Whenever we buy candy 
at home, I’ll say, ‘Remember Kano, Peter!’ ” 



THE ROOF OF AFRICA 


T KANO Uncle Lee received a cable from 



his editor in the United States to go to Ethi¬ 
opia. After a railway trip down to the Gulf of 
Guinea, the MacLarens started on a long cruise. 
Again they rounded the Cape, this time “against 
the wind,” as Uncle Lee put it. They landed in 
French Somaliland, planning to go by rail to 
Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. They found 
a hot, sandy country here where the natives made 
fences of thorn bushes and led their flocks and 
herds from place to place for scanty pasture. 

When the matter of money arose, the Mac¬ 
Larens were informed that in the vicinity of 
Addis Ababa they might use coins or paper money 
issued by the Bank of Ethiopia. If they were 
going elsewhere in the country, they might find 
it more advantageous to take along a supply of 
salt bars which could be traded for pepper. The 
pepper would bring a good price in French Somali¬ 
land and in Eritrea. 

For the first time in all their travels in Africa 
Uncle Lee was delayed, waiting to get permission 
from the Ethiopian government to enter the coun¬ 
try; but at last the permit came. 

“Emperor Haile Selassie the First, who is the 
great-nephew of the renowned Menelik II, is doing 
much to change his country from an absolute 


194 


THE ROOF OF AFRICA 


195 



Ewing Galloway 

POST OFFICE, TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE 
BUILDING IN ADDIS ABABA 

monarchy to a constitutional government,” Uncle 
Lee informed Peter and Nancy as the train moved 
out of Djibouti. “He has given Ethiopia a con¬ 
stitution and a representative government. Schools 
for all the people have been established, govern¬ 
ment hospitals organized, modern taxation and 
banking systems set up, and the natural resources 
of the country are being developed—coal, iron, 
gold, copper, sulphur, platinum and mica are 
among the most important. The principal food 
crop is a millet called teff, but there is always 
found in each village a plentiful supply of bar¬ 
ley, chich-peas and pepper. Cattle and sheep and 











196 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


chickens supply the meats. Tobacco is little used 
except by foreigners. Gradually and successfully 
Emperor Haile Selassie is modernizing his coun¬ 
try. Ethiopia will surprise you. It's larger than 
France and, in places, has one of the most delight¬ 
ful climates in the world.” 

Uncle Lee mopped his face and squirmed un¬ 
comfortably in his woolen tweeds as though he 
were* looking forward to a much cooler climate. 

“You must remember,” he continued, “that life 
in Ethiopia does not move fast. The people are 
a mixed race. In fact the name Abyssinia means 
'mixed’ in Arabic, and refers to this mingling 
of races. The people are largely of Semitic and 
Hamitic origin and very warlike. It is sometimes 
said that Menelik I was the child of Solomon and 
the Queen of Sheba, but history does not tell us 
that this is a fact. However this may be, the 
present ruler claims direct descent from Menelik 
the First. One writer calls their nation a moun¬ 
tain stronghold on the top of a continent.” 

“Our geography,” Nancy put in, “called Ethi¬ 
opia—or Abyssinia—the roof of Africa. In winter 
the mountains are covered with snow. When the 
snow melts and the heavy rains come, what a lot 
of water must flow down the sides of the moun¬ 
tains to help the Nile!” 

Uncle Lee observed, “You won’t be able to rec¬ 
ognize the language. It’s Amharic, an ancient 
Semitic tongue. There are seventy dialects. There 
is no literature as we know it.” 





THE ROOF OF AFRICA 


19 7 



THE EMPEROR OF ETHIOPIA AND HIS SON 

“What lucky children!” Peter commented. “No 
poems to learn!” 

“There is a literature that the priests read and 
understand. It is in Geez, and, like Latin, Geez is 
a dead language.” Uncle Lee concluded, “And, 
remember, Ethiopia is a Christian country. There 
are more than 18,000 round churches, one on 
almost every hill. These churches are always built 
in groves and they call the people to worship by 
means of stone bells.” Later, Peter and Nancy 
were to hear these stone bells which were slabs 
or tablets of rock struck by stones and emitting 
sweet, clear sounds. 





198 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


As the train climbed upward, Peter and Nancy 
stared down at the thorny bushes and the thistles 
with their globular, shining pink balls or blos¬ 
soms. Turquoise-blue rollers, flying singly, and 
gorgeous pink bee-eaters in close flocks appeared; 
and once, when the train stopped, Peter and 
Nancy saw some African sunbirds that made 
them homesick for the humming birds back in 
Minnesota. Olive trees and wild fig trees became 
more common. Weaver birds that looked like 
finches had hung their queer nests in some of 
the bigger fig trees. Huts appeared, small round 
grass-thatched huts. 

There were no more hot sandy stretches as 
the train climbed. The rolling grassy plains in 
the lower valleys looked rich and beautiful. Cat¬ 
tle fed peacefully outside the little villages. 

“An Ethiopian village looks like a group of big 
toadstools,” Peter spoke up. “Look at the natives! 
Seem to be mostly women and children. Where 
are the men?” 

“Probably off hunting or fighting,” Uncle Lee 
explained. “The women do most of the work, 
cooking, and carrying water in baked clay jars, or 
gumbas, as they are called. These jars are filled 
at spring or water hole, and then covered with 
green leaves. They are carried on backs, held by 
a strap around the forehead—just as you see them 
now. The women tend the cattle, too, and collect 
brush for fires.” 

“They're very fine looking,” Nancy decided. 




Ewing Galloway 


PETER AND NANCY SAW A MAN WEAVING, USING 
A PRIMITIVE LOOM 





200 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


True, numbers of these Ethiopians did look 
somewhat like other natives in that they had 
kinky hair and thick lips. But they had high- 
bridged noses, deep-set eyes, and firm chins. 
More impressive even than their features was 
their proud bearing. To be sure they moved slowly, 
but they seemed happy and peaceful. 

Once Peter shouted, “Look at that woman wear¬ 
ing a chunk of butter on her stiffly curled hair! 
IPs melting, too!” 

Uncle Lee laughed uproariously. 

“Not an unusual sight over here!” he cried. 
“That’s rancid butter, and the maiden allows it 
to melt to keep her coiffure in shape. It serves 
the same purpose as wave-set in our country.” 

Uncle Lee called attention to a man weaving 
with a primitive loom, sitting on the ground and 
using a hole for his feet. 

When at last the long journey was over, it had 
taken well into the third day before the train 
reached the capital. Then the MacLarens seemed 
as if by magic to have been transported into as 
odd a capital as they could have dreamed. 

“Addis Ababa!” Nancy said softly as she 
walked toward the American Mission between 
Uncle Lee and Peter. “What does it mean, I 
wonder? This seems to be a collection of native 
villages instead of a real city.” 

And so it was, but a very busy place, too. 
Everybody was barefooted. 

“The name, Addis Ababa, means ‘The new 





THE ROOF OF AFRICA 


201 



Chicago Daily Tribune 

THE SHEEP MARKET IN ADDIS ABABA 

flower/ ” Uncle Lee explained. “You see it had 
always been the fashion in Ethiopia to change 
capitals whenever the firewood gave out. It was 
the late Emperor Menelik the Second, of whom 
you will hear a great deal, who ordered eucalyptus 
trees planted here, when he built the city in 1892. 
They were brought from Australia because they 
grew so much more rapidly than the juniper and 
acacia trees. These trees are regulated. Some 
may be cut, but for every tree felled, a seedling 
must be planted. The new flower’ or new capital 
may be permanent this time. It’s surprising what 
has happened since my last visit. Some of the 
streets are actually paved and there seems to be 
a number of new motor cars. But the houses look 





202 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


the same, mostly mud-walled, tin-roofed homes.” 

From the small comfortable hotel the Mac- 
Larens made many excursions out into the town 
—all in daylight. At night it was not so safe. 
The bell boy told Peter of leopards that traveled 
the streets nightly. It did not seem possible but 
doubtless it was true. There were prowling 
hyenas, too, and ugly dogs not to be trusted after 
nightfall. But as newcomers were constantly ar¬ 
riving, less fear was felt regarding wild animals. 
They would scarcely attack a lively town. 

During the first afternoon, while Uncle Lee 
was visiting the Emperor’s modern palace, Peter 
persuaded Nancy to walk out for a closer inspec¬ 
tion of the huts away from the main street. 

Gaily they marched through the crowds of trad¬ 
ers and caravans. There seemed to be almost 
as many animals as people on the streets. There 
were camels, sheep, goats, horses, donkeys and 
dogs—every domestic animal under the sun but 
pigs. The costumes of the traders varied from 
white cotton cloth scarves worn in different ways 
to rich silk costumes with red fezzes or turbans. 
There were a number of sandals, although bare 
feet seemed to be the rule. European shoes were 
rare indeed. There were, of course, men from the 
desert with faces veiled below the eyes. 

Nancy nudged Peter. 

“Uncle Lee says that the white cotton wrap is 
called a chamma ,” Nancy whispered. “The way 
a man wears it shows his official position. Notice, 




Ewing Galloway 

ETHIOPIAN NOBLES IN FESTIVAL DRESS 



204 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


too, Peter, that one arm is always free, the right 
for men, the left for women.” 

“Pm more interested in the mule trains than in 
the styles,” Peter declared. “Mules are such 
sturdy, dogged little beasts. I suppose that’s why 
they’ve been used to climb up to this plateau.” 

“They’re sure-footed,” Nancy said. “Peter, 
we’re coming to the hill where the Gebi stands.” 

“What’s a Gebi?” Peter inquired. 

“Peter, you should remember!” Nancy was 
firm. “Uncle Lee told us just last night. The 
Gebi is the group of royal buildings where the 
Emperor or Empress and the officials live. Why, 
Peter, some of the houses are almost European.” 

“And some are decidedly Ethiopian,” Peter 
declared. “I imagine that big, round house be¬ 
longs to an official. There’s a little hut over there. 
Let’s ask that boy if we can look inside his house. 
Here, I’ll give him something—my color-bordered 
handkerchief.” 

The boy, tall and straight and darkly hand¬ 
some, led Peter and Nancy into the round mud 
house with the thatched roof. After the bright 
sunlight, the interior looked gloomy. Presently 
Peter and Nancy made an odd discovery. 

“There are two walls!” shouted Peter. “There’s 
an inner circular wall parallel to the outer wall.” 

“Look, Peter!” Nancy was delighted. “The 
inner wall divides the house into two parts. 
What’s in the outer part? Oh, I touched some¬ 
thing furry. It’s a little- pony.” 



THE ROOF OF AFRICA 


205 



Ewing Galloway 

A HOME IN AN ETHIOPIAN VILLAGE 

It was not long before Peter and Nancy dis¬ 
covered that the outer room was a combined tool 
shed and barn and that the family lived in the 
inner room. The earth floor of the family room 
was raised a little higher than that of the outer 
room. There was scant furniture. The earthen 
beds served as seats in the daytime. Apparently 
fires were built in the center of the hut, for some 
embers still burned and the thatched ceiling was 
black with smoke. What smoke escaped must 
have come out through the door for there was no 
chimney. 

Back at the hotel Peter and Nancy found Uncle 





206 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


Lee in conversation with an English traveler. 
They paused to listen. 

They had heard their Uncle Lee say that the 
vast wealth of Ethiopia in natural resources was 
what had made this country famous through the 
ages, and still makes it the center of so much in¬ 
terest today. 

“Ethiopia is one of the most fertile countries in 
the world,” the traveler was saying. “It’s the 
original home of coffee. It exports coffee, rubber, 
hides, elephants' tusks and beeswax, and it's 
going to use more and more of our products as 
time goes on—cotton goods, rice, sugar, petroleum 
and hardware. And I wish you could see the ibis 
and white egrets in the papyrus swamps. Makes 
me think of Egypt. These birds are a great aid 
in exterminating locusts. Hope the villages have 
good crops this year. And I sincerely hope there'll 
be a big demand for building materials too. All 
these natives—and there are over eleven million 
of them—need houses!” 

“I rather like their houses,” Peter spoke up. 

“I do, too,” Nancy agreed. “I think double 
walls are lots of fun.” 



AFRICAN MOUNTAINS 


J IMMY DUSTIN had kept his word. He was 
at Mombasa with his plane awaiting the Mac- 
Larens. They had left Addis Ababa with a mule 
caravan in order to get a closer and a better view 
of the steep plateau and its wonderful coffee plan¬ 
tations and of the cattle ranches in the well 
watered valleys below. From Addis Ababa at 
about 8,000 feet down to sea level meant travel¬ 
ing from the city of eternal spring to a hot, muggy 
coast. The change was not pleasant. 

They welcomed Jimmy with open arms. At din¬ 
ner in the small clean English hotel they com¬ 
pared notes like seasoned travelers. Jimmy had 
flown over the Cameroon Mountain, and he 
boasted that he had seen even wetter country than 
Ethiopia in the wet season. His flight in the 
second trip over the Gulf of Guinea had included 
a trip over Togoland and the Cameroons. 

“Debunja in the Cameroons is one of the wet¬ 
test, if not the wettest place in the world,” he 
declared, drinking his cool pineapple juice with 
relish. “The average rainfall is 412 inches, ten 
times as much as New York. Never before have 
I seen such dense forests. Glad to be above it 
instead of down in it. What a time Hannibal, 
the Carthaginian conqueror, must have had! For 
that matter, what a time Cameron must have 
had!” 


207 


208 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


“Explorers, I take it!” Peter remarked. 

“Yes. Old and new. Hannibal described the 
country about 200 B. C.” Jimmy grinned at 
Peter. “He said the land abounded with hairy, 
savage men known as gorillae .” 

Nancy cried, “They were real gorillas, of 
course.” 

Jimmy nodded. 

“He also said the land was lighted by streams 
of blazing fire which poured from the mountain 
tops into the sea.” Jimmy sat back. 

“Volcanoes!” Peter suggested. “There were no 
volcanoes when we made our flight along the 
coast of Guinea.” 

“The great Cameroon Volcano, called the Moun¬ 
tain of Thunder, was active in 1909,” Uncle Lee 
recalled. “It threw out large streams of lava. 
In 1922 there was so great an eruption that burn¬ 
ing lava streams reached the sea. Probably Han¬ 
nibal saw something of the sort.” 

“Cameron gives a different picture,” Jimmy 
spoke up. “He marched through the country in 
1875 and described it as a delightful fairyland. 
He said the natives lived pleasant lives in yellow 
thatched cottages, owned plantations of maize and 
cassava, fished in sparkling streams, and raised 
goats, fowls, and bees. He spoke of the bright 
red of the newly hoed ground and the sweetness 
of the creepers in the woods.” 

“The mountain is rightly named after him.” 
Nancy decided. “He saw the best in the country. 



AFRICAN MOUNTAINS 


209 


Cameroon would probably be the way a native 
would pronounce Cameron.” 

“Error!” called Uncle Lee, laughing. “The 
similarity in names is accidental. The country 
of Cameroon takes its name from the prawns in 
the water. It was the Portuguese who named it. 
The original spelling K-a-m-e-r-u-n shows the dis¬ 
tinction.” 

“Africa isn’t a land of many mountains,” 
Jimmy added, “but the ones it has are interest¬ 
ing.” 

The plane next morning rose from the hot sand 
to sail out over the masts of ships at Mombasa, 
then inland toward Nairobi, the capital of Kenya 
Colony. From the air Peter and Nancy observed 
that the city lay on a plateau right in the heart 
of Kenya. Jimmy said that it was over 327 miles 
from Mombasa, but the trip had not seemed that 
long. From above, Nairobi appeared to be a toy 
tin town, because so many buildings were of gal¬ 
vanized iron. 

From Nairobi the MacLarens could see both 
Mounts Kenya and Kilimanjaro. On Kenya the 
great snow fields and glaciers gleamed like the 
white, glossy frosting on a chocolate birthday 
cake. It was as though a cook had dumped the 
whole bowl of icing upside down and permitted 
it to run in uneven white streams. Kilimanjaro 
ended in two peaks, each one with a vast snow 
crater. Neither Peter or Nancy was surprised 
that the natives believed the top to be of molten 



210 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Philip D. Gendreau 

A SKULKING HYENA WITH SHAGGY COAT APPEARED 
NEAR A VILLAGE 

silver, for so the snow fields appeared. The sil¬ 
ver was without a touch of tarnish. 

The plane followed the Uganda Railroad that 
passed through the Great Rift Valley. This val¬ 
ley was said to be the largest on earth, part of it 
a mile and a half above sea level. Of course only a 
very meager portion of it was visible to the occu¬ 
pants of the plane. Shining blue lakes appeared 
like jewels in the valleys. At Kisumu on the 
shores of Lake Victoria the plane descended. In 
the broad, shallow basin of this greatest of African 
lakes the drainage of many rivers collected, as the 
onlookers observed. The waters escape evidently 
from Lake Victoria through the famous Nile. 




AFRICAN MOUNTAINS 


211 



NATIVES PEELING BARK FOR CLOTH MAKING 


The little party spent the night here but at 
daybreak rose to take off in the direction of 
Uganda. Over wild lands and plains and dense 
forests the plane hummed. Jimmy swooped low 
over herds of zebras who kicked up their heels 
and scattered. Ostriches broke into an awkward 
trot with ungainly legs. Gnus, those strange 
beasts with heads like oxen and bodies like horses, 
fled before the noise of the plane. Once they saw 
a skulking hyena with shaggy, spotted coat ap¬ 
pear near a village. Then Jimmy swooped low 
like a powerful eagle, and the cowardly hyena 
slunk to cover. 









212 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


The villages with their squat huts were built 
always in a circle, so that the cattle could be 
kept inside at night. Sometimes the children saw 
fences of thorns designed to keep out lions and 
other prowlers. 

But the natives of Uganda Colony were most 
interesting of all. In one village a group of them 
engaged in building a crude hut waved at the 
plane. Some of the men wore headdresses of 
ostrich feathers that bobbed wildly about. Women 
in bark-cloth robes ran out, their arms gleaming 
with bracelets of telegraph wire. 

“That native love of jewelry causes maintain- 
ance of telegraph lines to be difficult,” Uncle Lee 
shouted, pointing downward. 

“Those people are dressed in long clothes,” ob¬ 
served Nancy. 

“Yes,” replied Uncle Lee. “I am glad you have 
seen these natives of Uganda. They are a mix¬ 
ture of Bantu and Hamitic races. They are more 
civilized than the other native tribes. Their kings 
insisted upon higher standards of living than 
those of the naked savages that live alongside of 
them, and imposed penalties for misdeeds. Their 
bark-cloth robes are long and wide.” 

“Oh, look!” exclaimed Nancy suddenly. “See 
those women carrying bananas on their heads!” 

“They must be on their way to a market to ex¬ 
change bananas for other things they need,” ex¬ 
plained Jimmy. 

The plane left the lowlands, where bananas or 



AFRICAN MOUNTAINS 


213 



Ewing Galloway 


“SEE THOSE WOMEN CARRYING BANANAS ON 
THEIR HEADS!” 

plantains were plentiful and where fields of cot¬ 
ton were being harvested, to fly back to Kenya for 
a closer view of its mountains. Here fields were 
yellow with wheat. Farther up, the land was all 
timber. The air was clean and thin and very 
cold. The snow was ghostly white and of such 
pure unearthly beauty that it seemed to belong 
to heaven itself. The great, jagged rocks of 
Mount Kenya as the plane approached it formed 
strange rugged shapes that were like some fan¬ 
tastic dream. Peter and Nancy forgot the cold. 
Almost Jimmy forgot the fact that he was at the 







214 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Keystone View 

MOUNT KENYA 

controls. Both Peter and Nancy wanted to fly up 
over the great snow fields, but Uncle Lee objected. 
He was afraid the plane might be drawn down 
into the snow crater by one of the many strong 
wind currents. 

Snow, centuries old and miles deep! It did not 
seem possible, yet there it was. Mount Kenya! 
Lower and lower swooped the plane toward the 
base of the mountain. It came to rest at last 
on a grassy knoll beside a crystal-clear stream 
flowing down the mountain side. Birds sang 
sweetly, and speckled trout swam in the clear cold 
water. No dust, no insects, and no heat! There 
was nothing but beauty so perfect that it was 
like a dream. 

The overnight camping trip was only too short. 







AFRICAN MOUNTAINS 


215 



Wide World Photos 

A NATIVE HUT IN THE MOUNTAINS 

The plane rose next morning to sail away to the 
south on its visit to Mount Kilimanjaro, halfway 
between Lake Victoria and the Indian Ocean near 
the northern border of Tanganyika Territory. 
This mountain, almost 20,000 feet high, presented 
a memorable sight. Here, too, the snow was pure 
white and shining, and the clouds caressed the 
peaks with soft billowy arms. The soil of lava 







216 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


and rock beneath the snowy tops was barren, but 
lower down rich vegetation filled the valley, while 
at the bottom jungle grew rife. Orchids hung 
in great trees, and again Peter and Nancy felt 
the ageless beauty of the African scenes. 

The plane then started on its long trip toward 
the northwest. Oftentimes now the children be¬ 
held members of the Bantu race in cotton gar¬ 
ments and wearing odd jewelry, necklaces and 
anklets of iron and copper wire. Little irrigated 
farms appeared, watered by streams from the 
mountain snows. 

From the air the huts looked like haystacks. 
Each home had its own little granary, and each 
family evidently owned its own patch of bananas. 

The plane sped on. Ninety miles away, the 
snowy peaks of Africa's great mountains still 
glistened. Then a storm came up, splashing rain 
across the glass windows of the plane. It blotted 
out the mountains and shut in the little American 
party. 





A CARAVAN TRIP AND DESERT GARDENS 


T HE stars were shining, golden in a black vel¬ 
vet sky. Peter and Nancy, back in Timbuktu 
after the long airplane trip across Africa, were 
surprised to be with Bob Ludwig again. Uncle 
Lee had saved his surprise until the very last 
moment when Jimmy brought down his plane just 
outside the city. Bob had agreed to make the 
trip to Fez with the MacLarens in a caravan. 
Jimmy planned to follow by airplane. 

“You may want me to pick you up long before 
you reach the Barbary States,” Jimmy teased, 
as the little party enjoyed the feast Bob’s cook 
had prepared for them in the old familiar living 
room of the sand house. 

“What does he mean by Barbary States?” 
Nancy asked Bob. “Morocco? Algeria? Tunisia?” 

“Close guess.” Bob was pleased. “The Barbary 
States include the French possessions of Algeria, 
Tunisia, and Morocco, as well as the Italian pos¬ 
session, Libya. The name Barbary comes from the 
word Berber. The Berbers are a native white 
race. The invaders never conquered them even 
though they forced them back into the hills of 
the desert.” 

“Time to start!” Uncle Lee rose. 

“Now?” Peter and Nancy asked in one voice. 
“Now? At night?” 


217 


218 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


“It’s the most satisfactory time to travel on 
the Sahara,” Uncle Lee explained. “We're very 
fortunate in being able to join a large caravan 
that leaves this evening. I've secured some very 
fine riding camels.” 

“Is there much difference in camels?” Peter 
inquired. “I thought a camel was a camel.” 

“I suppose,” Nancy offered mischievously, “that 
you'd say a horse is a horse. There are draft 
horses, aren't there? And riding horses? Why 
shouldn't there be a difference in camels?” 

“There's a difference, all right,” Bob spoke up. 
“The jemal is like the draft horse; the mehari is 
like the saddle horse. But, as Peter says, a camel's 
a camel; and a desert trip is two-thirds hardship.” 

“And the other third?” Nancy insisted. 

“Is pure delight,” Bob replied. “There's a fas¬ 
cination about the desert that's hard to explain. 
Some people seem to think that the Sahara's just 
one broad, sandy stretch longer than the width 
of the United States; but it isn't. The size is 
right and that's all. There are hills and valleys 
as well as plains, and once in a while on the edge 
you'll find a sluggish river. You travel from one 
oasis to another. Some will prove to be mere 
water holes with a couple of date palms; others 
support hundreds of people with their irrigated 
fields and date gardens. You'll see for your¬ 
selves.” 

Each one of the party had his own camel, and 
each camel had his own place in the caravan. The 



A CARAVAN TRIP AND DESERT GARDENS 


219 


trappings were luxurious, and, as Nancy ob¬ 
served, it was like starting out on a cushiony bed. 
There were more than a hundred camels in this 
particular caravan and their well padded feet 
“plashed” along, as Peter said, quietly, in the deep 
sand. Once out of sight of Timbuktu, there was 
no path, nothing to serve as a guide except the 
stars in the sky. Endless hills and valleys of sand 
stretched in all directions, dotted here and there 
with a few tufts of coarse grass or a spiny plant. 
Their guide, a white-robed Arab of the desert, 
found his way by the stars and by landmarks 
familiar to him. 

Peter and Nancy soon grew used to the queer 
motion of their beasts, but they were too excited 
to doze. Hours and hours passed. The twinkling 
golden stars grew dim. That meant the sun was 
rising. The camels and riders cast long shadows 
on sand that would soon be bright with sunlight. 

Just as the first rays appeared, the caravan 
halted. 

“What is wrong?” Peter asked, riding up along¬ 
side Nancy. 

The reason was immediately apparent. The 
Arabs had dismounted and spread their little 
rugs on the sand. Then they turned their faces 
toward the East and repeated their morning 
prayers. In their turbans and flowing robes, they 
made an impressive picture. 

The procession moved on, the sun shining hot¬ 
ter and hotter. Peter and Nancy were becoming 




220 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Publishers' Photo Service 


THE MORNING PRAYERS ON THE DESERT 

more and more drowsy with the constant travel¬ 
ing and intense heat, when suddenly they noticed 
that the camels were appearing nervous. A haze 
began spreading all about. The air was hotter 
than ever, and the sudden breeze that sprang up 
was like a blast from a furnace. The camels 
stopped of their own free will, turned about, and 
lay down. Nancy and Peter found themselves in 
the company of Bob and Uncle Lee, crouching 
behind the camels. A simoon, or sandstorm, was 
raging. It was much worse than the blizzards 
back home, for the sand stung more sharply than 




A CARAVAN TRIP AND DESERT GARDENS 


221 


snow particles. From time to time Nancy moved 
her legs to push off the rising mounds of sand. 

The storm was over as quickly as it had come. 
All tracks of the caravan had been covered, and 
even the scenery had changed. New hills and 
valleys appeared, and rocks, not seen before, had 
been uncovered. Peter and Nancy were relieved 
to learn that the caravan was to rest before mov¬ 
ing on. In the shadow of a large sand dune, the 
children drank some tepid water, ate a few dates, 
and munched some cracker-like bread. The 
camels’ loads were taken off, and Uncle Lee ar¬ 
ranged for small tents to be pitched. Peter and 
Nancy were soon fast asleep on the smooth sand. 

As the sun sank lower in the sky, the caravan 
got under way again. A light breeze sprang up. 
The sand turned a delicate pink, then a rich rose. 
Colors appeared in the western sky. Soon stars, 
seeming to hang so low in the sky that one could 
almost touch them, came out by the millions. The 
whole bowl of the sky fairly glittered. The stars 
turned the sand to silver. In the dry, clear air 
there was nothing to obscure the view. In all 
their travels, Peter and Nancy had never beheld 
anything more beautiful than the starry Sahara 
at night. 

It grew surprisingly cold. Several hours before 
dawn the camels began to take longer, quicker 
steps. Peter shouted, “Look, Nancy! We’re near¬ 
ing an oasis!” 

A caravan was just watering its animals. This 




222 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


caravan was small and it was carrying salt into 
Timbuktu. The salt, that had come from an oasis 
in the Sahara, was in the shape of bars. These 
yard-long bars, Uncle Lee said, weighed about 
sixty pounds apiece. The camels that carried them 
looked tired, but they went on into the silvery 
night, “plashing through the sand.” 

There were some date palms and other vege¬ 
tation near this watering place. They had had 
plenty of moisture. Bob said the Arabs called the 
date palm “the queen of the desert.” This queen, 
they insisted, chose to have her feet in water and 
her head in the sunshine. 

As yet the caravan had reached no large oasis, 
and, after a short rest, the journey continued. 
Once there was a shout when some horsemen in 
waving garments swept down over a sand dune. 
They were Tuaregs, most dreaded of the fierce 
tribesmen that range the desert. On this occasion, 
fortunately, their mission was peaceful. They 
were carrying a message to a merchant in Tim¬ 
buktu. Peter and Nancy were much impressed 
with their elaborate clothes and the black veils 
that covered their faces below their eyes. Their 
servants, or vassals, as Uncle Lee called them, 
always wore white. How dark and burning were 
the shining eyes of these warlike Tuaregs! 

After the riders passed on, there was little to 
see, and happy indeed was the MacLaren party 
to sight a welcome late the next morning in the 
shape of many waving palms. How green that big 




A CARAVAN RESTING AT AN OASIS 




224 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Ewing Galloway 

DESERT CHILDREN ON THE BACK OF A WELL¬ 
LADEN DONKEY 

oasis looked, after so many hours of limitless 
desert sand! To the intense surprise of the Mac- 
Larens they found themselves in a busy village. 
Here was no mere stopping-place with a few 
tents, but a little desert town with sun-baked 
houses on a crooked street. The date palms, 
planted in orderly rows, were heavy with great 
bunches of succulent fruit. 

“It must be almost harvest time,” Bob guessed 
as he helped Nancy through the odd crowd after 
they all had rested. “There are so many nomads 
here, and they always come to help with the har¬ 
vest. What a lucky time for us to arrive!” 





A CARAVAN TRIP AND DESERT GARDENS 


225 


“You’ve much to learn.” Uncle Lee had joined 
his party. “You’ll find out, Peter, that dates are 
not just dates.” 

It was only a short visit in the big oasis, and 
Peter and Nancy soon learned that all dates were 
not like the ones sold in the grocery store at home. 
Some, they found, were sweet and soft and so 
juicy that the syrup from them had to be drained 
before they could be packed. This syrup the 
Arabs called date honey . Some varieties were 
hard and dry. These, like hard apples, were very 
good keepers, Uncle Lee said. Peter and Nancy 
did not care so much for the dry, hard dates, but 
realized how important they were to the people 
of the desert and to the animals, too. The chil¬ 
dren watched one of the Arabs as he pounded 
loose some dates from a mass of them, to feed his 
animals. 

In this oasis, little children were seen riding 
donkeys laden with the products from their well- 
watered gardens. Nancy and Peter thought these 
desert children must be having as much fun as 
they had riding horseback at home. 

Natives paused continually to stare at Peter 
and Nancy, strangers who owned no home but 
who traveled from one oasis to another with their 
camels, their families, and their worldly posses¬ 
sions. Often they were laden with rugs and 
leather water bags. 

Later the MacLarens were to visit in the great 
oasis town of Tafilelt in the western Sahara, two 



226 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


hundred miles from Fez; but never would they 
forget this smaller oasis with its dates and its 
little, well-watered gardens. Peter would have 
liked to help the Arabs cut down the great 
bunches of dates from the palm trees, and Nancy 
would have liked to help the women pack. This 
was such a beautiful little world, shut in by end¬ 
less miles of sand, that Peter and Nancy longed 
to remain. But after a refreshing night of sleep 
in comfortable beds, they found the caravan was 
ready to move on, and the MacLarens were a part 
of that caravan. 



A CITY OF MOSQUES AND FLAT ROOFS 
N ESCORT of soldiers had joined the caravan 



Jtl to protect it against fierce tribesmen of the 
desert who might take a notion to attack it. Bob 
talked much of the rekkas or secret messengers 
of France who often braved unfriendly country 
in the hope of establishing peace, only to forfeit 
their lives in the desert. Although Morocco, 
he said, flew two flags, the Tricolor of France 
and the Flag of the Sultan, there were leaders 
out on the Sahara who acknowledged no ruler 
other than themselves. They were like medieval 
kings with their fortresses, families, and vassals. 

The caravan passed Berber villages in which the 
huts looked like a cluster of haystacks. 

“The Berbers care more about keeping the sun 
out than letting the air in !” Uncle Lee observed. 

Not far from Tafilelt the caravan camped. 
Uncle Lee had been invited to bring his guests 
into the purple-black tent of a Berber chief and 
to enjoy the feast prepared there. The Berbers 
were a white-skinned people. Uncle Lee said he 
did not know their origin. The men who came as 
escorts were lean and quick in their movements. 
The women in front of the black-and-white tents 
seemed to Nancy very beautiful, with their dark¬ 
ened eyelids and slim, painted fingers. The chil¬ 
dren were bright-eyed youngsters, gay and happy. 


227 


228 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Ewing Galloway 

BERBER HOMES IN FRENCH MOROCCO 

Peter exclaimed over the giant tent of purple- 
black goats’ and camels’ hair. Inside it was lined 
with beautifully woven cloth and on the floor were 
laid bright carpets over which had been strewn 
embroidered silk and velvet cushions. The meat, 
which had been roasting on a brush fire outside, 
was brought in on tall skewers and carefully cut 
by the sons of the host. Everyone ate the bread 
and meat with his fingers. Grapes, dates and al¬ 
monds, grown not far away, proved a delightful 
dessert. There was thick black coifee for the 
men. And now horsemen rode about the black- 
and-white tents, coming to salute before the big¬ 
gest tent of all. The sun shone on their saddle 




A CITY OF MOSQUES AND FLAT ROOFS 


229 


blankets of crimson and green and gold. Even 
their long muskets were elaborately trimmed with 
silver and ivory. The pretty women beat their 
castanets, crying their “You-Yous,” which meant 
a welcome, and the children stared and laughed. 

In the MacLaren’s own caravan was much 
speculation. Tafilelt, Peter and Nancy learned, 
did not permit visitors in the homes. But they 
were all the more eager to make the hazardous 
journey. At this crucial moment the faint hum of 
an airplane could be heard. 

“The French have regular service, I imagine,” 
Uncle Lee guessed. “That plane’s coming from 
the direction of Timbuktu.” 

Never had Jimmy received a more enthusiastic 
welcome, and now there was no question as to 
the destination of the MacLaren party. Uncle 
Lee settled with the leader of the caravan, and 
his party waved a long farewell as the plane 
zoomed up and over into mountainous country. 

The Atlas Mountains were almost as splendid 
as the Rockies, and the odor of cedars in the 
warm sunshine was like balm. On the lower hill¬ 
sides grew olive trees and oranges. Jimmy, who 
seemed to be looking for a landmark, located it at 
last. It was the Ziz River. He flew above it, fol¬ 
lowing its course toward the outlet. 

From the sky the Ziz looked like a blue, peace¬ 
ful English brook although in places black cliffs 
rose over a thousand feet from its basin. On 
the tops of these mountains were oftentimes great 




Ewing Galloway 

A LITTLE DESERT GIRL 




A CITY OF MOSQUES AND FLAT ROOFS 


231 


battlements or palaces, built, Jimmy said, by na¬ 
tive rulers. Here they lived like feudal lords. 

The river did not flow to the sea, however. It 
turned valiantly out into the Sahara as though 
it would water all those sandy wastes. And there 
it perished. Its pure waters came to an end in 
a fringe of palms. 

Jimmy shouted. Against the skyline rose a 
fortified hill. 

So excited were Peter and Nancy that at first 
they did not notice the strange formations be¬ 
low. Here the waters of two rivers, the Ziz and 
the Rheris, spread out in a wide network of chan¬ 
nels. These two rivers ending in the desert made 
possible, as Uncle Lee said, a metropolis of 100,- 
000 souls in the dry Sahara. 

“Tafilelt, the biggest oasis in the world!” Bob 
cried. 

“In these walled villages of the Valley of the 
Ziz no one knows what goes on,” Uncle Lee said 
soberly. “There live powerful chieftains, die-hards 
of the desert, greedy for more of this world’s 
goods, Jews who have been persecuted and seek re¬ 
venge, fanatical Moslems, spies, slaves,. soldiers of 
fortune! Women live there, too, and children. But 
it is a strange world that the average traveler 
may never know.” 

In spite of their curiosity Uncle Lee’s party 
flew on toward Fez. But Morocco was not all 
oases and mountains. In the valleys and on rich 
plains grew wheat and barley, corn and millet. 



232 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


There were almond trees, fig trees, and olive 
groves. Bob said some of the olive trees were a 
hundred years old. 

Storks abounded everywhere. The natives never 
interfered with them. They permitted the big, 
awkward birds to build on chimney and on sacred 
shrine alike. Nancy squealed with amusement 
when she saw two little Moroccan boys trudging 
toward a cornfield. The head of each was closely 
shaved except for one small spot on top near the 
back. Here a thick lock of hair grew to the 
shoulder. Uncle Lee said that according to com¬ 
mon tradition in Morocco the faithful would be 
lifted into Paradise by this convenient lock of hair. 

Although most of the people in Morocco lived 
in villages or desert camps, there were, of course, 
a few large cities. Fez had been for many years 
the capital of Morocco and was still the largest 
city in the country, having 108,000 inhabitants. 

“The Sultan has a capital in each of four cities,” 
Uncle Lee said, “in Fez, in Meknes, in Marrakech 
and in Rabat. He lives in his palace in each city a 
part of the time. In Spanish territory he con¬ 
sults the Spanish High Commissioner, in the 
French part, the French Resident General. The 
Sultan is the head of the Mohammedan religion 
in this part of the world.” 

Fez, from the air, was a city of mosques and 
flat-roofed, bright-colored houses. There seemed 
to be a central square or market place. The 
streets appeared to be very narrow and crowded 






Paul’s Photos 


THE PALACE OF A GOVERNOR-GENERAL IN 
FRENCH MOROCCO 













234 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



A MOHAMMEDAN RULER ENTERING HIS CAPITAL 

with caravans, donkeys, and dark-skinned people 
on foot. 

Uncle Lee had rented a house. There were 
half a dozen men servants awaiting his arrival. 
They wore white turbans and long gowns and 
were ready to do service. 

The plain white outer wall of the house faced 
the street. The door that opened so hospitably 
was ornately carved. The members of the party 
found themselves in a court paved with tiles and 
lighted by lanterns of bright-colored glass. The 
walls were made of elaborately carved cedar 
panels. 






A CITY OF MOSQUES AND FLAT ROOFS 


235 


This court was surrounded by large rooms 
which seemed at first glance to be quite empty. 
However, there were rugs on the floors and a low 
ledge running around the walls. On this ledge, 
Uncle Lee said, the occupants of the house were 
expected to sit cross-legged. 

The newcomers made the attempt gaily. It was 
particularly difficult for Bob and Jimmy, as their 
legs were so long. 

In the bedrooms were wider ledges for beds. 
Nancy liked her room most of all. The rugs on 
the floor were a beautiful green. The velvet 
cushions were embroidered in gold. The high 
ceiling made the room cool. Above the door was 
a fretwork of wood for air. 

But Nancy scarcely had time to enjoy her new 
quarters when Peter called her to see the garden 
in the rear. All the bedrooms opened on this gar¬ 
den. Never had Nancy beheld a more beautiful 
one. Graceful palms and flowering plants had 
been planted beside the little artificial lake. 
Orange and lemon trees were bearing fruit and in 
bloom at the same time. The air was fragrant 
with perfume. 

In the evening, after a delicious dinner of 
chicken, vegetables, and fruit, with heavy, sweet 
coffee in tiny cups, the little party went up on 
the roof. Now Peter and Nancy realized why all 
the houses had flat roofs with little walls around 
them. All over the city the Mohammedan women 
spent the evenings on their roofs. 



236 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


In the morning the entire MacLaren party went 
on a sight-seeing tour. They strolled along be¬ 
hind donkey riders and laden pedestrians. Often 
they had to squeeze through the crowds single 
file. The mosques looked very inviting. It was 
certainly a Mohammedan country. Outside in the 
courts men in turbans washed themselves before 
going inside to pray. Uncle Lee said a Moham¬ 
medan prayed five times a day, washing himself 
each time in preparation for the ceremony. 

“What does he do on the desert?” Peter in¬ 
quired. “Water isn't so handy out there.” 

“He washes his hands and face with sand,” 
Uncle Lee explained. “Listen! That man up there 
in the minaret or tower is calling the faithful to 
prayer.” 

“I wish I knew what he was saying.” Nancy 
squinted at the tower. 

“I happen to know,” Uncle Lee answered. “He 
says, ‘Come to prayer! Come to prayer! Prayer 
is better than sleep. Come to prayer!' See the 
natives bowing in answer to the Call?” 

Uncle Lee was interested in the famous uni¬ 
versity where the Koran, the Mohammedan Bible, 
was very carefully taught. Peter and Nancy, 
however, enjoyed walking along the narrow 
streets under the matting of grapevines that 
shaded buyers from the hot sun. Here in shops 
open to the street, everything was displayed from 
tooled leather to raw meat. On the shady side of 
uncovered alleys, merchants sold eggs and live 




Ewing Galloway 


HERE, IN SHOPS OPEN TO THE STREET, EVERYTHING 
WAS DISPLAYED 

















Kaufmann rf Fabry 

“SEE THE NATIVES BOWING IN ANSWER TO 
THE CALL?” 














A CITY OF MOSQUES AND FLAT ROOFS 


239 


chickens while pigeons fluttered upon the crum¬ 
bling walls. 

Jimmy led the party to the Karouiine Mosque, 
the largest and most important religious edifice 
in Fez, and in Africa itself. 

“No Christian may enter,” said Jimmy, “and 
photographs may only be taken from near-by 
buildings.” 

“This mosque is very old,” explained Uncle Lee. 
“It was built between the years 800 and 1100. 
Think of that! 

“The Karouiine Mosque is also the location of 
the Fez Mohammedan University, which is famous 
throughout Morocco. Students come to study the¬ 
ology, grammar, Moslem law, and jurisprudence. 
This university is very different from ours in 
many ways.” 

Peter and Nancy looked at the handsome com¬ 
bination college and mosque. It was a lovely, 
graceful building with beautiful arches, fine carv¬ 
ings, and a splendid marble floor seen through 
arches, on which Mohammedans trod with bare 
feet, leaving behind them their turned-up, red 
leather shoes. Peter expressed a wish that he 
might walk barefoot on the cool smooth floor. 

Jimmy said, “At least it would be quieter. 
Those boots of yours make more noise than all the 
Mohammedans in Fez.” 





THE WHITE CITY OF ALGIERS 


T HE MacLarens had come on alone to Algiers, 
promising to meet Jimmy Dustin and Bob Lud¬ 
wig in Egypt. After settling his party in a fine 
modern resort hotel, Uncle Lee led Peter and 
Nancy down to the yellow sand of the Mediter¬ 
ranean shore. 

“Before we explore,” he said, “I want you to see 
Algiers as newcomers have seen it for hundreds of 
years, from the sea. It is a crescent city climbing 
up hill. To Algiers, pirates returned laden with 
treasure and chained captives. Here Frankish 
fleets braved the pirates’ strongholds in vain at¬ 
tempts to free Christian slaves. And here, not 
more than a hundred years ago, merchant ships 
sailed in terror because of the tyrant of Algiers, 
the Dey, who claimed his share of the treasures 
that every seafarer brought home.” 

Peter’s eyes followed the shore with its green- 
black rocks at one end. His gaze rose from the 
docks and warehouses to the white-walled city. The 
houses did climb one above another, up and up, on 
terraces, as though striving to look over each 
other’s shoulders for signs of masts upon the sea. 
Beyond the hills of the city, Peter saw the plain, 
still vivid with flowers, yellow with oranges, and 
green with vineyards. The cornfields had turned 
sere. Above all towered the rugged Atlas Moun- 


240 


THE WHITE CITY OF ALGIERS 


241 



“ALGIERS IS A CRESCENT CITY CLIMBING UP HILL” 

tains, crowned with clouds. The sky itself was a 
radiant, clear blue, as blue as the sea so close to 
Peter's feet. Almost Peter could see the blood¬ 
thirsty pirates climbing up to their great castles. 
Almost he could visualize the jewels and the silks 
piled high in the rooms with the mosaic tiled floors. 
He could dream of the carved cedar walls and the 
beautiful rugs and cushions. For Peter the foun¬ 
tains plashed again and the perfume of millions of 
roses was freed from priceless vials. While slaves 
groaned in dungeons below, silk- and jewel-clad 
men and women enjoyed rare banquets above. 









242 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


Peter came back to earth. Nancy was saying as 
they walked along, “IPs the most amazing wharf. 
There are acres of warehouses. Uncle Lee says 
that all those casks are full of grape wine and that 
the cord wood over there is really cork. Wake up, 
Peter. There are dates in those boxes, wheat in the 
sacks, and alfa grass in bales. Most of the prod¬ 
ucts go to France, as they rightfully should. France 
has made Algeria a safe country.” 

Peter's eyes brightened. He led the way to the 
docks to watch the ships put their cargoes ashore. 
To his delight some of the vessels flew the Stars 
and Stripes. A sailing boat from Boston had 
brought in a .consignment of salt fish, and another 
steamer from the United States was unloading 
cotton and meats. From Argentina there was a 
big shipment of jerked beef for the interior. 

“Why is the city called Algiers?” Nancy in¬ 
quired. “IPs a lovely sounding name. Sounds like 
surf to me.” 

“The Arabs named it Al-jezair, which means, 
‘The Islands/ from the rocky islets in front of the 
town. Now, as you see, there's a walled harbor. 
Most of the rocks have been removed and steamers 
dock easily.” 

The MacLarens left the wharves and began to 
climb up into this city of a bountiful land. 

There were long blocks of six-storied stone and 
stucco houses that looked like white marble in the 
sunlight. There were shady squares where palm 
trees waved above electric trams. There were 






Publishers’ Photo Service 


DERVISHES COLLECTING ALMS FOR THE SUPPORT 
OF A MOSQUE 











244 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


shops that Paris might be proud of. And there 
seemed to be an eternal procession of five-horsed 
wagons loaded with wine casks. 

From time to time Uncle Lee paused to rest. Up 
beyond the new city the three MacLarens came to 
Pirate Town. The houses were so close here that 
the roofs almost touched. The upper stories on 
wooden struts were less than a yard apart. There 
were no streets. The alleys had become mere nar¬ 
row stairways between stone walls. It would have 
been impossible to climb a smooth street so steep. 
Nor could the three MacLarens walk abreast. 
Peter, up ahead, had to flatten himself against a 
wall to let a laden donkey go by. The donkey was 
led by a boy wearing a red fez and a short skirt. 

They passed three beggars. Uncle Lee said it was 
a common sight in Mohammedan cities for small 
bands of holy men, known as dervishes, to collect 
alms for the support of the mosque. Through the 
narrow crooked streets of the towns they march 
to weird fantastic music of drum and flute. 

Such strange names for streets! Translated 
from the French they meant Giraffe Street, Tim¬ 
buktu Street, Saracens Street, and Night Street. 
Each name had some association with Africa as 
Peter and Nancy had known it. 

White-robed women passed. They were veiled to 
their lustrous, beautiful eyes. Massive silver and 
gold necklaces were on their bosoms, and their 
henna-tipped fingers were loaded with rings. Broad 
silver bracelets adorned their wrists and their 



THE WHITE CITY OF ALGIERS 


245 



Philip D. Gendreau 


AN ARAB FAMILY IN ALGERIA 

ankles as well. They wore the daintiest of em¬ 
broidered slippers. 

The palaces had fallen into decay. Where once 
swaggering pirates strode through rooms of por¬ 
celain floors with flower designs now dwelt less 
affluent families. In the courts where fountains 
had played, there were often unveiled serving 
maids cleaning graceful brass water jars, or per¬ 
haps some grocer had set up a stall with a marble 
counter. The grandeur was no more. 

Once the MacLarens passed a group of children 
studying the Koran in their open-air classrooms. 

Uncle Lee led Peter and Nancy through a tun- 







246 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


neled passage under the houses and out on the mar¬ 
ket square. It was the usual African market with 
meat, fruit, vegetables, and bread spread out on 
the ground or displayed in rough stalls. 

But the Arab coffee house was new to Peter 
and Nancy. Out in front of this club lounged 
all sorts and conditions of men drinking their 
tiny cups of hot coffee very slowly. Inside, at 
a waist-high fireplace, a cook dipped his long-han¬ 
dled measure into the steaming pot. The coffee 
smelled very good indeed, and it seemed to revive 
the weary customers seated on benches or huddled 
on mats. On the walls were crude drawings of 
mosques, palm trees, and elephants. Uncle Lee 
could not let Nancy have more than a peek into the 
coffee house, as girls did not patronize it. But he 
explained that these coffee houses were often the 
poor man’s club. 

“A man may bring his crust of bread and his 
handful of onions to the coffee house,” said Uncle 
Lee. “He may even sleep against the wall or on 
the mats if he wishes. He buys his coffee, of course, 
once or twice a day.” 

Each narrow shopping street in Algiers—the 
natives called them souks —was devoted to one par¬ 
ticular trade. There were streets where tailors 
sewed rapidly hour after hour, and streets where 
cobblers made red leather babouches or native 
slippers, and streets where silk shawls and bodices 
were displayed. But to Peter and Nancy the most 
fascinating streets of all were the Jewelers’ Street 





THE WHITE CITY OF ALGIERS 


247 



EACH NARROW SHOPPING STREET IN ALGIERS WAS 
DEVOTED TO ONE PARTICULAR TRADE 


and the Perfumers’ Street. In the Jewelers’ Street 
Nancy became interested in the multitude of tiny 
gold hands inset with coral or turquoise, that were 
on display. This type of hand, she learned, was 
the universal Arab mascot, and the imprint was 
supposed to bring luck to a house. 

“It is found,” Uncle Lee said, “on the wall 
of every Moorish home. The Moors call it kamsa 
or ‘five,’ because of the five fingers. The Euro¬ 
peans term it ‘the hand of Fatima,’ the daughter 
of the Prophet.” 

Nancy, who had never asked for any nose rings 







248 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


or brass anklets, could not be persuaded to leave 
the stalls until Uncle Lee had purchased one of 
the tiny gold hands for her. 

“Next you'll be wanting a few drops of per¬ 
fume," Uncle Lee teased. 

It was in the Perfumers' Street that the children 
learned of perfumes like jasmine and rose that 
were worth more than their weight in gold. They 
were so valuable that they were sold by the drop. 

“Now let's go to the Thieves' Bazaar," said Uncle 
Lee with a twinkle in his eye. 

“Here, Peter," he offered grandly when they had 
arrived, “we'll let you choose a gift." 

Peter shouted with laughter, for here at the 
Thieves' Bazaar were all sorts of odds and ends for 
sale, empty bottles, old meat tins, odd keys, worn 
out boots, coffee pots without spouts, and ragged 
coats. 

It was hard to pull Peter away, for, as he said, 
this market was even more interesting than the 
bazaars had been. Farther on, the Rue and the 
Boulevard de la Victoire brought the MacLarens 
to a fortress, a prison, and a cemetery. Uncle Lee 
glanced suddenly at his watch and hurried Peter 
and Nancy back to the car line. There was still 
much to be seen since the city streets would be de¬ 
serted by nine o'clock in the evening. A group of 
Berber girls in from the desert, passed by. They 
were unveiled and were ignored by the veiled 
Mohammedan women. Often these girls earned 
their dowries by dancing. 



THE WHITE CITY OF ALGIERS 


249 


In the hotel Uncle Lee met a Mohammedan busi¬ 
ness acquaintance, and Nancy was invited to meet 
his daughter. In the privacy of her room the little 
girl wore, over a chemise of filmy gauze, a rich 
silk jacket. Below were trousers of finest silk and 
on her head a dainty little velvet cap sewed with 
jewels. 

Nancy afterward spoke of Algeria as the land 
where boys wear skirts and girls wear trousers, 
and Peter remembered Algiers as the town that 
climbed upstairs to a pirate's palace. 



INTERESTING NEIGHBORS OF ALGIERS 


O N the skyline the Monument aux Morts de 
l’armee d’ Afrique became fainter and 
fainter. Peter and Nancy waved a lingering fare¬ 
well to the white-walled city of Algiers. 

The Mediterranean was brilliantly blue. The 
air was so fresh and invigorating that the Mac- 
Larens were able to put aside regrets at leaving a 
truly lovely city and to turn their eyes toward new 
scenes. 

“The Arabs called Tunis, El Hadra, which 
means ‘The Green/ ” Uncle Lee observed as the 
three sat idly in their deck chairs. “It's scarcely 
a true description. There’s only a scant dribble 
of vegetation around the town.” 

It was Peter who first made an amazing dis¬ 
covery as the little ship turned toward the 
shore line. 

“Look!” he shouted. “It isn’t time for a sunset, 
and yet there’s the most gorgeous sunset I’ve ever 
seen.” 

“A pink sunset!” Nancy cried. “0 Peter, it is 
lovely!” 

Uncle Lee said nothing. Peter, glancing at him, 
whispered to Nancy, “There’s something queer 
about that sunset. Maybe it isn’t a sunset.” 

“Then what can it be?” Nancy inquired, as she 
continued to gaze, fascinated. 


250 


INTERESTING NEIGHBORS OF ALGIERS 


251 



Globe Photos 


THE BEAUTIFUL FLAMINGOES ROSE IN PINK CLOUDS 
AND FLEW OVER THE LITTLE BOAT 

Then as the ship eased in toward the shore the 
two enthusiasts yelled together, “Flamingoes! Pink 
flamingoes!” 

The beautiful birds rose in pink clouds and flew 
over the little boat. Then the boat slid into the 
canal and continued up to the city itself. Through 
splendid broad streets a taxi carried the Mac- 
Larens to a hotel. The sun was blazing, and 
Nancy, her cheeks flushed, whispered, “A cool 
bath will certainly be refreshing, Uncle Lee.” 

Uncle Lee did not comment. 

When the taps in the bathroom ran a stingy 
trickle at which Nancy complained, Uncle Lee 
called in, “Tunis suffers perpetually from a water 







252 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


shortage. I suppose we'll have to put up with it 
for a few days, but the country is colorful. 

“Tunisia is under the protection of France. The 
population is a mixed one, including large numbers 
of Mohammedans, Frenchmen, Italians and Jews. 
Tunisia is an agricultural country, too, raising 
quantities of wheat, barley, corn and oats. Cat¬ 
tle, sheep and goats are found in large numbers. 
Dates constitute one of the most important crops." 

Uncle Lee said that the mines of Tunisia would 
some day be famous, too. There are quantities of 
zinc, iron, lead, and phosphate in the country. Alfa 
grass is being shipped regularly to England to be 
used in making paper. Cork, as in Algeria, was 
commonly seen on the wharves. And like Algiers, 
he declared, Tunis was a walled city, but its hills 
were covered with villas and gardens. 

Tunis did not look quite so modern to Peter as 
Algiers. Evidently most of the citizens were Mo¬ 
hammedans, for turbans and gowns were the usual 
dress. There were great bazaars throughout the 
city which Uncle Lee said reminded him of the 
bazaars of Bagdad. There were roofed-over streets 
and cave-like shops, bigger than those in Fez. 
These shops sold copper dishes, shoes of red and 
yellow leather, and rare perfumes of violet and 
rose and verbena. 

The street scenes fascinated the two children. 
Hooded Moors, veiled Mohammedans, large Jew¬ 
ish women in high caps and voluminous trousers! 
Here it was fashionable to be as stout as possible. 






Philip D. Gendreau 


NATIVE CHILDREN IN THE DATE-RAISING SECTION 
OF TUNISIA 














♦ 


A NATIVE BOY WITH A LOAD OF DATES 








INTERESTING NEIGHBORS OF ALGIERS 


255 



MOHAMMEDANS IN TURBANS AND GOWNS 

An old Turk in black gown and red slippers stared 
at Peter, and Peter stared back respectfully at the 
man’s green turban. Uncle Lee had told Peter 
what a green turban meant. This sheik had been 
to Mecca, the holy city where Mohammed was 
born. Since green was the favorite color of Moham¬ 
med, only those who made the pilgrimage to his 
shrine were allowed to wear this color. Beside 
Nancy stood some Italians, talking rapidly, and a 
little farther on were tall, lean desert Bedouins, 
burned by the sun to the color of old leather. Mules, 
donkeys, and camels crowded with their owners 
through the narrow lanes. 








256 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


A money changer in skullcap and long gown sat 
cross-legged in his shop, and a sweetmeat merchant 
offered candies. There was an age-old look about 
all the bazaars. It was strange to* be in a city 
founded long before the time of Christ. 

But it was Carthage, about twelve miles from 
Tunis and facing the sea, that had captured Peter’s 
imagination. 

“We’ll ride out and have a look at Carthage by 
street car,” Uncle Lee announced, as Peter and 
Nancy munched succulent dates at the. fruit ven¬ 
der’s stall. 

“Uncle Lee!” Peter was purposefully aghast. 
“Think of going out to Carthage on a street car! 
Why, nothing short of an elephant or a richly 
caparisoned charger would be appropriate. When 
I remember that 300 war elephants and 800 war 
horses were stabled in the towers and casements 
of the great wall of Carthage and that the vessels 
of war in the two harbors had iron beaks that 
could ram a Roman ship—well, Uncle Lee, is that 
the sort of place to visit on a street car?” 

Uncle Lee was amused, but Peter rode the street 
car just the same. 

The sun was dazzlingly bright, but it was the 
scene before him at which Peter blinked. He had 
expected ruins, but not such havoc. Scarcely one 
stone stood upon another except in the great 
cisterns that supplied the ancient city with water. 
Many had been repaired by the French to water 
the villages and towns near by. 



INTERESTING NEIGHBORS OF ALGIERS 


25 7 



Paul’s Photos 

RUINS IN TUNISIA 

“Those immense cisterns had a capacity of 600,- 
000 gallons,” Uncle Lee remarked. “Over there 
you see the ruins of the great aqueduct that 
brought water to fill them from springs some 
eighty miles distant. The water is now carried 
in iron pipes.” 

“Where are the treasures of Carthage?” Peter 
inquired, picking up a bit of marble so smooth and 
lovely that it glinted in the sunlight. 

“You'll see some of them, the perfume boxes and 
mirrors and jewelry, in the museum here,” Uncle 
Lee promised. “As for the rest, the mosaic floors, 












258 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


the lovely tiles, and the wonderful marble columns 
were carted away to build Tunis and Rome. Nearly 
every ship on its way to Italy carried away some¬ 
thing for building material. It took years.” 

“And Carthage was once the greatest city in 
the world!” exclaimed Peter. 

By morning, however, Peter was. looking for¬ 
ward, not backward. 

“Where did you say we were going next?” he 
asked Uncle Lee, who was packing at the hotel. 
“Libya or Tripoli?” 

“Either. Both,” Uncle Lee replied. “Tripoli at 
present is known as Libya. The country no longer 
belongs to the Turks but to Italy. Italy owns 
Eritrea, which is nothing more nor less than a 
strip of sand along the coast of the Red Sea, and 
Italian Somaliland, farther south. You know 
what that's like. Libya is a lot like it. The Italians 
seem to have a liking for sand.” 

“Libya can't be a very rich land, then,” Nancy 
guessed. 

“It isn't,” Uncle Lee replied. “Plenty of it, 
though, all the Mediterranean coast between Tunis 
and Egypt and far back into the desert. Scanty 
population, mostly Arabs, Negroes, and Jews. But 
the few thousand Europeans are being rapidly 
augmented through Italy's efforts. We shall see 
quite a change. In Bengasi there are paved streets 
and electric lights, also good water.” 

The MacLarens were about to leave for their 
boat when the unexpected happened. Into the hotel 





INTERESTING NEIGHBORS OF ALGIERS 


259 


lobby burst a young friend of Uncle Lee’s. Albert 
Burtzlaff, big and bronzed, with gray eyes spark¬ 
ling and smile broadening at sight of Peter and 
Nancy, began to talk rapidly and convincingly. The 
MacLarens must change their plans. They could 
go on to Libya later. Why, right south of Car¬ 
thage, he said, lived the troglodytes of the desert. 
They were worth seeing. A plane awaited the 
MacLarens. 

“Jimmy Dustin!” shouted Peter, and they all 
talked at once. 

“But who are the troglodytes?” Nancy inquired 
when there was a pause. “Of course we want to 
see them. Don’t we, Uncle Lee?” 

There was only one answer possible. Half an 
hour later the party of five was winging its way 
out over the desert. 

“And there are 30,000 people living here in 
holes!” Jimmy shouted, pointing at the red sand¬ 
stone cliffs which were enveloped in a lovely blue 
haze. 

He brought the plane down on a sandy open 
place. Then he took Nancy’s hand and shouted, 
“Follow us!” 

Of all the places and modes of living that Peter 
and Nancy had seen in Africa, this was the strang¬ 
est. The idea of living in holes cut in the sides of 
desert hills seemed queer at first; but, as Albert 
said, there was no reason for pitying these people. 
They had solved a problem and made themselves 
comfortable at the same time. Their problem had 





260 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



been the Tuaregs, who previously had carried off 
their women and their cattle. The new homes were 
warm at night when the desert was cold, and cool 
in the daytime when the desert was hot. Since these 
homes had no chimneys, the cooking was done out¬ 
doors. 

These desert dwellers looked rather fierce but 
proved quite hospitable. They permitted the Mac- 
Laren party to go into one of their homes. It was 
easy to see how they had managed. They had used 
one stratum of hard rock as a floor and the one 


Ewing Galloway 


OF ALL THE PLACES THEY HAD SEEN, THIS TROG¬ 
LODYTE VILLAGE WAS THE STRANGEST 





INTERESTING NEIGHBORS OF ALGIERS 


261 


above as a ceiling. The rooms were about twenty 
feet long and eight feet wide, cemented and white¬ 
washed throughout. There were platforms for 
beds, and there were hand-woven blankets for cov¬ 
ers. Along the side walls divans had been built; 
and each family had its own supply of olive oil, 
dates, figs, and grains, stored in jars. Each fam¬ 
ily, too, had a section of stone-walled courtyard out¬ 
side for privacy and for pets. 

Topping all these homes at the summit of the 
hill was the storehouse and fort. At last the troglo¬ 
dytes were free of the Tuaregs. 

“That’s the strangest way to live that anyone 
could imagine,” Peter decided as the party went 
back to the plane. 

“You’ve something still stranger to see,” Albert 
promised. “Jimmy, let’s show Peter and Nancy 
the climbing troglodytes!” 

The plane rose and sped over the desert south of 
Tunis. From the great height there seemed to be 
a number of round holes in the ground. 

“Three square miles of wells!” Albert shouted. 
“That’s where the climbing troglodytes live!” 

“Impossible!” Nancy shouted back. 

But Albert was right. The holes proved to be 
wells, sixty to seventy feet in diameter and about 
thirty feet deep. Inclined runways took the dwell¬ 
ers down into rooms below the desert floor. They 
were cool, pleasant rooms, simply and scantily fur¬ 
nished, but safe and clean. 

As Jimmy flew back to Tunis, both Peter and 





262 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


Nancy tried to express their gratitude because the 
journey to Libya had been so pleasantly delayed. 
But they soon learned that their visit to Libya 
would have to wait until they came to Africa 
again. Uncle Lee received a cablegram from his 
editor to come home for a conference. However, 
he promised the children to show them the Nile. 
So, on to Egypt! 



THE LAND OF THE NILE 


T HE very name of Cairo had a magical effect 
upon Peter and Nancy. They had landed 
toward evening so sleepy that the first impres¬ 
sions of Egypt had been vague as a dream. Be¬ 
fore they had had time to look around Jimmy had 
met them at the dock in Cairo and flown them 
south to Khartoum, a very long journey indeed! 
Now they were to fly back by daylight. They 
were to see Cairo with their eyes wide open. 

Khartoum, situated as it was on a bridge of 
land between the Blue and White Nile in the 
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, proved to be a very busy 
city with its exchanging of ivory, ostrich feathers, 
and fruits for European products. The Mac- 
Larens were grateful for the long night's rest in 
a modern hotel. 

At breakfast Uncle Lee said: “This is a land 
of strange contrasts and little change. You'll be 
seeing the same Egypt, youngsters, that Moses 
saw, the same that the Israelites saw when they 
worked under the Pharaohs. 

“The same huge stone monuments are here, and 
the fellahs , or peasants, still live in the same sort 
of flimsy huts. There is little change in the char¬ 
acter of the farmer or in the way he tills the land. 
Each little plot has its usual mud fence. And, in 
spite of changes in religions, Paganism, Chris- 

263 


264 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Ewing Galloway 

THE DOCK AT CAIRO 

tianity, and Islam, the Egyptian peasant still be¬ 
lieves in many superstitions that date back to 
animal worship.” 

After breakfast the MacLaren party walked 
down to the river. Jimmy pointed out a Nilo- 
meter, built of stone, to measure the height of the 
water. 

Peter and Nancy began a barrage of questions. 
“The Nile,” Uncle Lee told them, waxing more 
and more eloquent as he continued, “is the answer 
to every question you might ask me about Egypt. 
First of all, Egypt’s agricultural life is due to the 








THE LAND OF THE NILE 


265 



Ewing Galloway 

“YOU’LL BE SEEING THE SAME EGYPT THAT 
MOSES SAW” 


fact that the floods each year deposit a rich layer 
of silt just right for crops of rice, wheat, corn 
and millet. Because of these floods which washed 
away landmarks each season, the science of math¬ 
ematics was developed to fix the boundaries.” 

“And then came the science of astronomy,” 
Jimmy put in, “because the Egyptians needed a 
calendar. You see the weather’s about the same 
the year round, warm, dry and free from frost. 
The average person could only guess at the time 
the flood was to be expected. Some very observant 
men noticed that the flood always came when 
the stars stood in certain places. These men who 









266 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


could foretell the flood became priests, and very 
powerful they were! Pyramids and temples were 
built as observatories from which the priests 
could study the heavens.” 

“And all because of the Nile!” Nancy declared. 
“Yes, all because of the Nile,” Uncle Lee agreed. 
“The decorating of the pyramids and temples 
stimulated an interest in art and literature. The 
literature had to be recorded, and so paper was 
invented. That first paper was made from the 
rushes taken from the Nile and beaten out into 
sheets called—” 

“Papyrus!” Peter offered. 

“Then,” Uncle Lee continued, “the art of writ¬ 
ing helped to record fixed laws for the people 
and it all comes back to—” 

“The Nile!” Nancy supplied. “Reminds me of 
'The House That Jack Built/ Everything ends 
with the wonderful, wonderful Nile. No wonder 
poets have raved about her!” 

“My mechanic will rave if we don’t get to the 
airport soon,” cried Jimmy. 

As the plane rose high into the brilliant blue 
sky above this city of flat roofs, wide streets, and 
pleasant parks, Peter exclaimed, “From up here 
it’s easy to tell how the rivers got their names. 
The Blue Nile is really blue and the White Nile 
really white! Wonder what Nile means.” 

“Its meaning is unknown,” Uncle Lee replied, 
“though I believe the word is of Greek origin. 
Well, youngsters, you’re in a strange country. 




THE LAND OF THE NILE 


267 


Egypt is almost rainless, yet the water supply 
never fails.” 

Peter and Nancy were both thinking of Ethiopia 
and of the part it played in Egypt’s water supply. 
They knew that the rain, pouring down the steep 
slopes of Ethiopia during the spring and summer 
rushed in streams over the hillsides. The winds 
blowing in from the ocean and the sun shining 
straight down on the cool mountain tops helped 
the process. These streams, thick with mud 
scoured from Ethiopia’s hills, joined the Blue 
Nile. Rushing along with tons of soil and water, 
the Blue Nile joined the White Nile at Khartoum. 
Below Khartoum few tributaries entered the Nile, 
the children knew, except the Atbara, sometimes 
called the Black Nile because of its dark waters. 
This river always ran dry during part of the 
year, Jimmy said. It was about 200 miles from 
Khartoum. Thus it was really Ethiopia on which 
the Nile depended for her vast supply of flood 
water. And it was Lake Victoria that she could 
thank for her not so humble beginnings. 

Between Khartoum and Aswan, Peter and 
Nancy beheld the six famous cataracts, one at a 
time, caused by the water rushing over hard 
ridges of stone which crossed the valley of the 
Nile. 

“You’ll have to count them backwards,” Jimmy 
shouted. “The first one we see is Number Six.” 

Peter and Nancy nodded. Jimmy flew low in 
salute over the towns of Berber, Abu Hamed, 



268 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


and Aswan. It was at Aswan, 600 miles south of 
Cairo, that a great dam had been constructed at 
a cost of millions of dollars to hold back some of 
the flood waters. This dam had helped to enlarge 
the area of land that could be irrigated and had 
aided the increase of cotton production. 

The scene below was a patchwork of little 
fields through which ran roads, paths and canals 
that looked like strips of silver cloth. Tall corn, 
very green alfalfa, and the snowy beauty of cot¬ 
ton ! Beans, too. And date palms. 

“Looks like enough food for the whole world!” 
shouted Nancy. 

“And there are 12,000,000 people to eat it!” 
Jimmy called back. 

But, as Uncle Lee said later, Egypt raised much 
more cotton and wheat and dates than she could 
consume. Those 12,000,000 people Jimmy had 
mentioned were all good American customers. 

As Jimmy swung lower the scene took on life. 
Droves of donkeys, laden with fat loads of grass, 
camels carrying bales of alfalfa or piled high 
with grain, and thousands of other animals, water 
buffaloes, fat sheep, and goats, feeding or work¬ 
ing! Once in a while there appeared a horse or 
a mule, and, among the workers, sometimes they 
saw a child playing with a pet. 

Uncle Lee pointed to a camel turning a 
bucket pump which lifted irrigation water from 
the well. A ditch leading from the Nile brought 
the water to moisten a grain field. 





THE LAND OF THE NILE 


269 



Ewing Galloway 

UNCLE LEE POINTED TO A CAMEL TURNING A 
SAKIEH OR BUCKET PUMP 

Farther down Albert pointed and shouted, 
“Thebes!” 

Peter and Nancy knew that “Golden Thebes,” 
famed for its palaces, its temples and its great 
statues, had once been the capital of Egypt. Then 
it fell into decay and sands drifted over the ruins 
of the once powerful city. Jimmy flew lower to 
show his passengers the modern towns of Luxor 
and Karnak built on the site of old Thebes. He 
also pointed out the Valley of the Kings near 
Thebes where King Tutankhamen’s tomb had 









270 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


been excavated. He even negotiated a landing. 

Rough limestone cliffs standing out nakedly in 
the fierce noonday sun served as a background 
for the barren wastes given over to the tombs. 
These wastes were in sad contrast to the little 
gardens of the irrigated Nile itself. In these 
wastes scientists had sought out the secrets of a 
great Pharaoh and his Queen. The MacLaren 
party decided to make the trip on foot. The dis¬ 
tance did not look great. 

Camels plodded by on their way to the cane 
fields, and sweaty little donkeys, carrying water 
bottles, ambled cheerfully past the new visitors. 
A small boy, chewing sugar cane, gave Nancy a 
radiant, white-toothed smile. What looked like a 
moving stack of sugar cane proved to be a laden 
donkey. Camels and oxen hitched together worked 
at the water wheels and in the fields. The village 
through which the party strolled was surrounded 
by a mud wall, and the narrow alleys between 
the rows of little houses made of sun-dried brick 
and thatched with straw or palm leaves, looked 
almost black. Uncle Lee said that most villages 
boasted a number of palm trees, but this particu¬ 
lar village displayed not a touch of green to relieve 
its drabness. It seemed deserted. 

“Everybody works out in the fields,” Uncle Lee 
declared. “These people use their houses mostly 
to sleep in. Even the cooking is done outdoors 
on little stoves of baked clay. The fellahs live 
mostly on vegetables, eggs, cheese and dates. 



THE LAND OF THE NILE 


271 



Ewing Galloway 


A FAMILY IN THE NATIVE QUARTER AT KHARTOUM 

Their bread is of corn, wheat, or millet, ground 
up, and baked in round, flat cakes. All of these 
workers are poor, for those who own land, own 
only a small garden patch; the rest work for 
wealthy land owners and earn but a few cents a 
day. 

“They’re luckier than their ancestors at that. 
If it had not been for Mehemet Ali who realized 
that Egypt could raise cotton and sugar as well 
as wheat and rice, the country would not be so 
prosperous today. He began the control of the 
flood waters by building the Cairo Barrage. While 
it wasn’t all he had hoped for, later engineers 










272 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


worked out the plan he had dreamed of. Now, 
with controlled water power, Egypt is not depend¬ 
ent upon one crop a year.” 

“Anyway, their wants are small,” Peter ob¬ 
served. “No fuel problem, for one thing. And in 
this climate all they wear is a pair of short cot¬ 
ton trousers and a gown of blue cotton. The little 
felt hats can’t be expensive; and all a man has 
to do to dress up, is to twist a scarf about his 
head, and, lo! he has a turban!” 

“The women wear blue cotton gowns and cloths 
over their heads, I’ve noticed,” Nancy said. 
“Nothing elaborate! In towns they wear those 
long, black veils, with only their lovely eyes 
showing. The black veils trailing over their blue 
gowns look pretty. The women walk erect always. 
I think I shall carry things on my head when I 
get home. It gives a girl a good carriage. Speak¬ 
ing of carriages, I wish we had one.” 

However, while exploring in the tombs a few 
hours later, Nancy forgot her fatigue. Carrying 
candles which dripped hot grease on their hands, 
Peter and Nancy looked upon mummies, the actual 
bodies of great rulers who had been dead thou¬ 
sands of years. How the Egyptians had preserved 
these bodies no one knew. Jimmy and the Mac- 
Larens were awed by the relics they saw—relics 
of an age of splendor. They saw gold work laid 
on leather in a lotus-flower design, golden scarabs, 
alabaster vases filled with unguents, still frag¬ 
rant after three thousand years and more, a stool 



THE LAND OF THE NILE 


273 


of solid ebony inlaid with ivory and mounted with 
gold, a gold and silver throne inlaid with semi¬ 
precious stones, wheels of royal chariots, cere¬ 
monial couches, and even bouquets that, in the 
dry, sealed tombs, had preserved a semblance of 
beauty. 

Peter could scarcely be drawn away from one 
of the life-size statues of King Tutankhamen that 
had once guarded the doorway of his own sepul¬ 
chre. On the black forehead appeared the royal 
cobra of inlaid bronze and gold. The eye sockets 
and eyebrows were of gold, the eyeballs of ara¬ 
gonite, and the pupils of obsidian. It seemed rath¬ 
er sad to Peter to think that the guarded tomb 
should have been despoiled. 

But, as Jimmy said, knowledge was power; and 
the children of the present could benefit by what 
they learned of the past. 

Back in the plane again, all the MacLarens 
were silent, lost in thought. Jimmy himself gave 
quiet attention to his plane. It rose high. 

Now the land was flatter. The Nile flowed 
more sluggishly. The minarets of Cairo came in 
sight. 

Jimmy flew low over the city to give Peter and 
Nancy a bird’s-eye view before landing. For the 
first time the children realized that Cairo stood 
on the eastern bank of the Nile at the end of a 
range of hills. It was on a spur of these hills 
that the great citadel was built. 

The western part of the city was more French 




274 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Philip D. Gendr.eau 

THE CITADEL IN CAIRO 


than Arabian, and here the government offices as 
well as the European homes were located. To the 
MacLarens the eastern part, with its narrow, 
winding streets and its oriental buildings, was 
more intriguing. All over the city the graceful 
towers or minarets rose from the numerous 
mosques. Albert pointed out the mosque known 
as El-Azhar, “The Splendid,” where the famous 
Fez Mohammedan University is located today. 

But Peter and Nancy had been watching the 
desert close by. They had caught sight of the pyra¬ 
mids across the river, the tombs of Egyptian kings 
long since dead. Beyond these pyramids was the 
Sphinx, and Uncle Lee promptly agreed to a close- 
up view later on. 






THE LAND OF THE NILE 


275 


Peter and Nancy were too greatly excited to 
remain long in the hotel. While Uncle Lee was 
busy, they went on a sight-seeing trip with Jimmy 
and Albert, riding small donkeys with high red 
saddles. Small, brown, barefoot donkey boys, wear¬ 
ing skullcaps and blue cotton gowns, urged the 
stubborn little animals along by slapping at their 
hind legs with rods. It made for a very uneven 
gait. 

The crowds were fascinating, up-to-date Euro¬ 
peans in automobiles, soldiers on horseback, Be¬ 
douins on camels, turbaned sheiks on donkeys, 
and veiled Mohammedans on foot or in carriages. 
Soon there was a crowd of children running along¬ 
side the donkeys shouting, “Backsheesh! Back¬ 
sheesh !” 

“What do they want?” Peter asked Jimmy. 

“Gifts! Money!” Jimmy answered. “That’s the 
first word an Egyptian youngster learns.” 

“Oh, give them something!” Nancy begged. 

“I will, but you’ll be sorry.” Albert grinned. 
“Watch!” 

He drew from his pocket a few coins and threw 
them into the narrow street. The children swooped 
down upon them like hungry sparrows. Then they 
swarmed closer than ever, pleading, “Backsheesh!” 

“Oh, let’s get away,” Nancy pleaded. 

Jimmy and Albert were glad to get off their tiny 
donkeys. They were so tall that Jimmy said he felt 
as though he and Albert should carry the donkeys 
instead of having the donkeys carry them. The 




Philip D. Cendreau 

A SHOPKEEPER IN THE OLD PART OF CAIRO 












THE LAND OF THE NILE 


277 



Ewing Galloway 


THE GREAT CAMEL MARKET ON THE OUTSKIRTS 
OF CAIRO 

four escaped the little beggars by dashing into the 
shadowy bazaars where the matting across the 
narrow streets shut out the bright sunlight. In the 
Bazaar of the Carvers the workers, mostly boys, 
sat on the floors of their shops, holding the wood 
with their toes as they worked. Other bazaars, 
where brass or books or jewelry was sold, were in¬ 
teresting enough, but the visitors came back twice 
to watch the boy carvers. Jimmy and Albert de¬ 
cided to try wood carving when they arrived home. 

On the outskirts of Cairo the MacLaren party 






278 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 


visited the great camel market. Here caravan 
owners were buying and selling camels. 

“In Egypt,” Albert explained, “camels are more 
valuable than automobiles. There are few roads 
for motor vehicles, and a camel doesn't need 
roads.” 

Nancy felt sorry for the poor animals that had 
one foot tied up to make them stand without hitch¬ 
ing. But as Peter observed, the camels seemed 
placid and contented. 

On the way back to the hotel Albert insisted on 
stopping in a Coptic Church. 

“The Copts,” he explained, “are among the 
earliest Christians. They are descendants of an¬ 
cient Egyptians and, surprisingly enough, are 
tolerated by the Mohammedans. There are thou¬ 
sands of Copts here in the city of Cairo.” 

That evening, with the moon riding high, Uncle 
Lee took his little party out to see the pyramids 
and to pay a visit to the Sphinx. It was to be only 
an eight-mile trip out of Cairo on the desert. 

Albert was at the wheel of the car with Uncle 
Lee beside him. Nancy settled back comfortably 
between Jimmy and Peter. Through broad streets 
and out over a wonderful iron bridge guarded by 
bronze lions crept the car, then speeded through a 
long avenue of acacia trees meeting overhead. Such 
a marvelous road! On either side, down below, 
were the green stretches of rice fields, and at the 
end a patch of silvery light—the desert. 

“Three big piles of stone against the sky!” Peter 



THE LAND OF THE NILE 


279 



Ewing Galloway 

THE SPHINX AND THE PYRAMIDS 

declared. “The Great Pyramid, built by Cheops, 
looks best to me.” 

As the MacLaren party walked across the sand 
toward the Great Pyramid, Nancy observed, “It 
gets bigger and bigger. I had no idea it was so 
immense.” 

“It would be bigger still if a great deal of it had 
not been carted into Cairo for building material.” 
Uncle Lee looked up at the vast structure. “No 
matter how many times you see it, it’s always 
amazing.” 

Albert put in, “Well, its base covers a good 




280 


PETER AND NANCY IN AFRICA 



Ewing Galloway 

THE SUEZ CANAL AT CAIRO 


thirteen acres, and you could set the MacLaren 
house at home on top of it. Cheops had big ideas. 
Think of 100,000 men working twenty years! Can 
you see them? Sweating black men forced to trans¬ 
port those great blocks of stone from the Arabian 
mountains and ferry them across the Nile! They 
say it took ten years alone to make the road that 
brought the stones in. Now Cheops and his Queen 
lie inside, each in a special room. Let’s climb up!” 

“Go ahead, if you want to,” Uncle Lee agreed. 
“Nancy will stay here with me.” 

Nancy longed to make the attempt, but when she 
was made to see that there were about a hundred 
and fifty layers of stone and that each layer or step 







THE LAND OF THE NILE 


281 


was as high as an ordinary dining table, she was 
content to watch. It took three Arabs to help each 
of the boys, pulling and hauling them up and up 
and up. 

Uncle Lee and Nancy were waiting when the 
boys returned. Peter was more tired than he cared 
to admit, and even Jimmy and Albert were rather 
silent. The party moved softly over the desert 
sands. 

The Sphinx looked mysterious in the silvery 
light. No one knew how old it was nor why it was 
made. This enormous figure, with the crouching 
body of a lion and the head of a man, had been cut 
out of a solid block of rock. How had that rock 
been brought down on the desert? It was as 
high as a five-story building. The great head 
would fill a big living room. The nose itself was 
five and a half feet long. All the features were 
worn, partly by shots from Arab soldiers, partly 
by desert storms. 

“Who are you, old Sphinx?” Peter inquired. 

“And where did you come from?” Nancy asked. 

The Sphinx kept its secret as it always has. 

In the morning Bob Ludwig joined the Mac- 
Laren party, and, as the plane soared up on its way 
to Alexandria to catch the boat for home, Peter and 
Nancy realized that this was their farewell to 
Africa. For them it had not been the Dark Con¬ 
tinent. It had been the Bright Continent. Stored 
up for the future years were countless sunny 
memories. 
























" • 

. 













. 






































PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY 


PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY 


Abu Hamed (a'bdo ha'mfid) 
Abyssinia (&b'l-sln'l-a) 
Accra (&k'ra) 

Achewa (a'chS-wa) 

Adderly (&d'er-lf) 

Addis Ababa (ad'is a'ba-ba) 
Afghanistan (&f-g&n'!-st&n) 
Africa (&f'ri-ka) 

Afrikaans (&f'r!-kans') 
Agulhas (a-gul'as) 

Alala (a'la-la) 

Albertville (&rbert-vTl) 
Alexandria (al'Sg-z&n'dri-a) 
Algeria (&l-je'rl-a) 

Algiers (&l-jerz') 

Al-jezair (al-je-zir') 

Amazon (&m'a-z6n) 
Amharic (&m-h3,r'Ik) 

Angola (§ng-go'la) 

Angoni (an'gon-e) 

Arab (Sr'&b) 

Argentina (ar'jSn-te'na) 
Asenga (a's6n-ga) 

Ashanti (a-sh8n'tl) 

Aswan (as-wan') 

Atbara (at'ba-ra) 

Atlas (at'lfts) 

Australia (os-tral'ya) 
Awemba (a-wfcm'ba) 

Awisa (a'wes-a) 

Baal (ba'&l) 
babouche (ba-bdosh') 
backsheesh (b&k'shesh') 
Bagdad (b&g'd&d) 

Bangala (bang-ga'la) 

Bantu (ban'too') 
baobab (ba'o-b&b) 

Barbary (bar'ba-rl) 
Barberton (bar'ber-t&n) 
Barozi (biir'o-ze) 

Basuto (ba-sdo't6) 


Bathurst (bath'erst) 

Bechuanaland (b6ch'ob-a'na-l&nd') 
Bedouin (b£d'oo-ln) 

Beira (ba'ra) 

Beit, Alfred (bit, &l'fr6d) 

Bengasi (b6n-ga'z£) 

Berber (bur'ber) 

Bethany (bSth'a-ni) 

Bethlehem (bSth'le-6m) 

Bingerville (b&N'zha'vel') 

Biskra (bls'kra) 

Blantyre (blan-tlr') 

Bloemfontein (bldom'fdn-tan) 

Boer (boor) 

Boma (bo'ma; 

Bornu (bSr-noo') 

Botoka (bd'to-ka) 

Boulevard de la Victoire 
(bdol'var' de la vek'twar') 
Brama (bra'ma) 

Brazzaville (bra'za'vel') 

Bulawayo (bddl'la-wa'yd) 

Bushman (bdbsh'm&n) 
bywoner (bl'vo'ner) 

Cairo (ki'ro) 

Cairo Barrage (ki'ro bar'Ij) 
Caledon (kSl'£-d6n) 

Cam (k&m) 

Cameron (kam'er-hn) 

Cameroon (k&m'er-don') 

Carmel (kar'mSl) 

Carthage (kar'thij) 

Caucasian (ko-ka'sh&n) 

Chad (chad) 

Chaka (chiik'a) 
chamma (cham'ma) 

Cheops (ke'dps) 

Chinde (shen'dS) 

Congo (kdng'go) 

Congoese (k6ng'g6-ez') 

Copt (k6pt) 


284 


PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY 


285 


Coptic (kbp'tfk) 

Coquilhatville (ko-kel'at-vll) 
cowrie (kou'rl) 

Cuanza (kwan'za) 

Cullinan (ktd'l-n&n) 

Cush (kush) 

Dahomey (da-ho'ma) 
Damaraland (d&m'a-ra-l&nd') 
Debunja (da-bdon'ja) 

De Kaap (da k6p) 

Delagoa (del'a-go'a) 

Dey (da) 
dhow (dou) 

Dias, Bartolomeu, 

(de'as, bar-to'lo-ma'do) 
Djibouti (je'boo'te') 

Dodoma (do'do-ma) 

Dondo (don'do) 
donga (dSng'ga) 

Drakensberg (dra'k6nz-bftrg) 
dugong (doo'gong) 

Durban (dftr'b&n) 

Egypt (e'jlpt) 

El-Azhar (P a-z&r') 

El Hadra (P had-ra) 

Elizabethville (e-Hz'a-bCth-vIl) 
Elmina (Sl-me'na) 

Eritrea (8r'e-tra'a) 

Ethiopia (e'thi-o'pl-a) 
Excelsior (8k-sei'si-6r) 

Fatima (fa'te-ma) 
fellahs (fgl'az) 

Fez (f&z) 

Freetown (fre'toun) 

Ga (ga) 

Gama, Vasco da 
(ga'ma, vas'ko dii) 

Gambia (g&m'bi-a) 

Gebi (geb'bl) 

Geez (ge-Sz') 

Gibraltar (ji-brol'ter) 


gite (zhet) 

Grahamstown (gra'&mz-toun) 
Griqualand (gre'kwa-l&nd) 
Groote Shuur (grot shur) 
Guinea (gln'J) 

Gunga (gtmg'ga) 

Hamites (h&m'itz) 

Hannibal (h&n'i-bal) 

Hausa (hou'sa) 

High veld (hi'velt) 

Hindu (hln'doo) 

Hottentots (h6t'’n-tSts) 
Howick (hou'Ik) 

Huguenots (hu'ge-nbts) 

Islam (fs'lam) 

Ituri (I-tu're) 

Jagersfontein (ya'gers-fon-tan') 
Jameson (jam'stin) 
jinrikisha (jfn-rfk'sha) 
Johannesburg (yo-han'6s-biirg) 

Kabalo (ka-bal'o) 

Kaffir (k&f'er) 

Kalahari (ka/la-ha're) 
kamsa (k&m'sa) 

Kano (ka'no) 

Karnak (kar'nak) 

Karouiine (kar-do-en'a) 

Karroo (k&-rob') 

Kenya (ke-nya') 

Khartoum (kar'toom') 

Kigoma (ke-go'ma) 
Kilimanjaro (kil'e-man-ja'ro) 
Kimberley (kfm'ber-lf) 
Kinshasa (kln-sha'sa) 

Kisumu (ke'sob-moo) 

Kiya Be (kl-a'be) 
kongoni (kSng-go'nl) 

Koran (k6-ran') 
kraal (krai) 

Kruger, Paul (kru'ger, poul) 
kudu (kbb'ddo) 



286 


PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY 


Kuka (koo'ka) 

Kunene (kdo-na'nS) 

Ladysmith (la'dl-smlth) 

Leicester (ISs'ter) 

Ledpoldville (la'o'pold'vel') 

Liberia (ll-ber'I-a) 

Libya (llb'i-a) 

Limpopo (lim-po'po) 

Livingstone (llv'Ing-stim) 

Lourengo Marques 
(l6-rSn's6 mar'kSs) 

Lowveld (lo'vSlt) 

Luanda (loo-an'd&) 

Lusaka (loo-sa'ka) 

Luxor (liik'sor) 

machilla (ma-she'la) 

Malays (ma-laz') 

Mangbattu (mang-bat'oo) 

Marco (mar'ko) 

Marrakech (mar-ra'k6sh) 

Masai (ma-sa'g) 

Mashona (ma-sho'na) 

Matabele (m&t'a-be'lS) 

Matadi (ma-ta'd£) 

Matopo (ma-to'po) 

Mecca (m8k'a) 

Mediterranean (m6d'i-t6-ra'n£-&n) 
Mehemet Ali (ma'hS-met a-le') 
Meknes (m&k'nSs) 

Menelik (mSn'S-lIk) 

Mesopotamia (m6s'6-p6-ta'ml-a) 
Messina (m€s-se'na) 

Mohammed (m6-h&m'gd) 
Mohammedan (m6-h&m'&-d&n) 
Mombassa (m6m-ba'sa) 

Mongolian (m6ng-go'li-&n) 
Monument aux Morts de l’arm^e 
d’ Afrique (mo'nu man' o mor de 
Y ar-ma' d’ a-frek') 

Moors (mobrz) 

Morocco (m6-r6k'o) 

Mosi-oa-Tunya (mo-se-o-y&-tun'y&) 
Moslems (mbz'lSmz) 


Mossamedes (m6s'a-ma'dSs) 
Mozambique (mo'z&m-bek') 

Nala (na'la) 

Nairobi (ni-ro'be) 

Natal (na-t&r) 

Niger (ni'jer) 

Nigeria (ni-jer'i-a) 

Nile (nil) 

Nyasa (nya'sa) 

Omar (o'mar) 

Ophir (o'fer) 

Oudtshoorn (outs'horn) 

Palestine (p&l'Ss tin) 

Parys (pa-ris') 

Persian (ptir'zMn) 

Phoenician (fS-nlsh'&n) 
Pietermaritzburg 
(pe'ter-m&r'Its-btirg) 

Plumtree (pliim'tre) 

Port Elizabeth (port £-lIz'a-b£th) 
Portuguese (por'tu-gez) 
Potchefstroom (pbch'Sf-strom') 
Potgieter, Hendrik 
(pSt'get'er, hSn'drlk) 

Pretoria (pre-to'rl-a) 

Ptolemy (t6l'£-ml) 

Pygmy (plg'ml) 

Rabat (ra-bat') 

Rekkas (rSk'k&s) 

Rheris (rer'Is) 

Rhodesia (ro-de'zhi-a) 

Riebeek, Jan van (re'bek, yan van) 
Rift (rift) 

Rustenburg (rhs't6n-bhrg) 

Sabi (s&'be) 
safari (shf'a-re) 

Sahara (sa-ha'ra) 

Saint-Louis (s&N'loo'e') 
sakieh (s&k'I-S) 

Salisbury (solz'b&r'I) 






PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY 


287 


Sara Kyabe (sa-ra' kl-a'be) 
Semites (sSm'itz) 

Senegal (s6n'£-gol') 

Senores (sa-nyo'ras) 

Shari (sha'rg) 

Shire (she'ra) 

Siam (si-am') 

Siberia (sl-b§r'l-a) 

Sierra Leone (sl-Sr'a 16-o'n6) 
siesta (si-Ss'ta) 

Selassie, Haile (sll'16ss-se, hi'IS) 
Siva (se'va) 

Somaliland (s6-ma'l£-land') 
souks (sooks) 

Southampton (south-amp'tiin) 
soutris (sou'tres) 

Sphinx (sflngks) 

Stanley (stan'li) 

Stanleyville (st&n'll-vll) 

Sudan (soo-dan') 

.Suez (sob-Sz') 

Swahili (swa-he'l£) 
Swartbergen (svart'bSrg-Sn) 
Swazi (swa'zS) 

Syria (slr'i-a) 

Taal (tal) 

Tafilelt (ta-fe'lSlt) 

Tana (ta'na) 

Tanganyika (t&n'g&n-ye'ka) 
Tembu (tSm'boo) 

Thebes (thebz) 


Thuku 

Thysville (this'vll) 

Timbuktu (tlm-biik'too) 

Toben Guela (to'bSn goo'S'la) 
Togoland (to'go-l&nd') 
Transkeian (trans-ki'an) 
Transvaal (trans-val') 

Tripoli (trip'6-ii) 
troglodytes (trfig'lS-dits) 

Tuareg (twa'rSg) 

Tunis (tu'nls) 

Tunisia (th-nlsh'I-a) 
Tutankhamen (tdot'angk-a'mSn) 

Uele (wa'IS) 

Uganda (u-gan'da) 

Ujiji (oo-je'jS) 

Umgeni (om-gSn'e) 

veld (v£lt) 

Victoria (vik-to'ri a) 

Vishnu (vish'noo) 

Voortrekkers (for'trSk'ers) 

Wasara (wa'sa ra) 

Windhoek (vint'hook') 
Witwatersrand (wlt-wa'ters-rant) 

Zambezi (zam-be'zl) 

Zanzibar (zan'zl-bar') 

Zimbabwe (zim-ba'bwa) 

Ziz (zlz) 

Zulu (zdb'loo) 
















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